


Hypertension

by SarahEverton



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Drama, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Trauma, Sequel, Torture, so much drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahEverton/pseuds/SarahEverton
Summary: (Sequel to 'Hypoglycemia')After Alex and Maggie's kidnapping, the DEO starts hunting CADMUS in search for Lillian Luthor. When the woman finally decides to show herself, another skeleton in Maggie's closet brings them in a whole new level of danger.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a week since CADMUS had taken Alex and Maggie hostage, and things were almost back to normal. Of course, normal was always a relative term around the couple, as their jobs usually involved life-or-death situations, dealing with an alien superhero sister, and – most recently – a lot more worries in terms of sugar on Alex's part.

Maggie found it equal parts endearing and slightly annoying how Alex was now counting for the fact that Maggie had to check her levels a couple of times per day, though she couldn't be mad at the agent for being worried about her.

Yet the first conversation after Maggie was dismissed from the DEO with a clean bill of health, she had in fact established some ground rules.

Number one – this didn't change anything between the two of them.

Number two – whenever Alex could help, Maggie would ask for her help, however, fussing over her was completely out of the question.

Alex hadn't been too big a fan of that one, but she had accepted anyway.

And number three – from now on, Alex would always carry an emergency syringe kit with her when they were together.

That was actually a suggestion from Alex's side, and Maggie was more than happy to agree with it. She was well aware that her being stubborn and not willing to tell Alex the secret was the reason both of them had gotten in the mess, so they made a promise to finally tell each other the truth.

Alex had promptly spilled the truth on her first celebrity crush. Some vague musician that Maggie had never heard of, and the videos of the guy wearing black face-paint and screaming into a microphone on stage had – quite frankly – scared her a bit. Alex then sheepishly admitted going through an emo phase as a teenager, the cringeworthy pictures following shortly.

Alex didn't expect Maggie to give her anything in return. She was pretty sure that Maggie still had some skeletons in her closet that she would talk about when she was ready, but their promise to one another didn't mean they had to talk them all through in that instant.

However, there was one thing bothering her.

Back at CADMUS, Alex had heard Lillian talking to Maggie about telling Alex the truth about something. Ever since she'd heard, she'd been curious as to what exactly that might have been. But seeing how defensive Maggie was about it at the time, whether it was just defying Lillian Luthor or genuine fear of telling Alex, the agent didn't know. She didn't want to pressure Maggie into talking about it though, their wounds were still too fresh at that point.

But it had been a week since the whole deal, and it hadn't slipped Alex's mind in the slightest.

Maggie had recovered slowly, needing time to heal the cut in her stomach and her other injuries, but was getting there. Today was actually her first day back on the force.

After giving their statements to J'onn and – much to her surprise – the president, the DEO had been given the direct order to focus on incapacitating Lillian Luthor, dead or alive, and dismantling CADMUS. And the first step in doing it had been to arrest the known pawns of the game:

Taylor Lewis, and her girlfriend Ciara.

Alex, leading the investigation and thus interrogating both women, was stumped to hear that they themselves were threatened to kidnap them and play CADMUS' game, otherwise they'd been killed. The only things they knew were the things that the DEO already knew too. Vague messages, threats and hate against aliens.

Rick Cooper had been freed of all charges against him, and formerly apologized to by the mayor. Apparently he was just glad that Maggie was alright, and didn't make a big deal out of it. But the first thing he _did_ do was kick Lewis off his squad, despite Alex insisting that she was just a pawn in the game.

"I don't deal with traitors in my team." Was all he had said.

Alex hadn't told Maggie. She knew that it was Cooper's story to tell, and in all honesty – she didn't want to deal with _that_ situation too.

So, deciding to surprise her with an impromptu romantic dinner, Alex had sent Maggie a text inviting her, ran to the store after work, and was currently chopping vegetables at her apartment.

As she heard the lock turn, she grabbed a towel to wipe off her hands. The door opened, and a tired looking Maggie Sawyer stood in the doorway, dropping her keys onto the table.

"Hey. What's all this?" She asked, motioning to the candles and table set for two. Alex smiled. "I thought I'd make you dinner."

Maggie smiled lovingly, and walked up to Alex, kissing her on the lips. Alex had decided a week ago that she'd never take Maggie kissing her back for granted _ever_ again.

"How was work?" Alex asked, while returning to her vegetables. Maggie reached into Alex's bar and grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses, while looking at her girlfriend with a raised eyebrow. "I thought we were never asking each other that question?"

"I mean, I think we need to make an exception here." Alex smiled, before growing serious. "Seriously though, everything alright?"

"Yeah, well, apparently Cooper kicked Lewis out."

Alex grimaced. It may not have been a surprise, but the sorrow was definitely not faked. Lewis was genuinely one of Maggie's best friends. "I'm sorry."

Maggie sighed, and reached for the bottle-opener. "It sucks. But I'll get over it. He made me patrol all day, so I had a lot of time to think. As if I haven't done that enough these past days."

She popped the wine bottle open, and looked at Alex. "What about you?"

"Oh, paperwork." Alex shrugged. "And taking baby steps in tracking down CADMUS. We have a team of at least ten people tracking them down 24/7 and we haven't even managed to find a single skin cell of Lillian Luthor anywhere."

Maggie winced sympathetically, pouring two glasses of wine. "I mean, she can't be too far… She still has unfinished business."

It was meant to be a joke, and Alex knew it, but she still couldn't help the grimace at the implications of Maggie's words. The detective realized immediately that she'd crossed a line, and opened her mouth to apologize when Alex shook her head. "You're right."

"Can I help you with anything?" Maggie said, handing one of the glasses to Alex, and raising hers. Alex smiled. "Just be here with me."

"Always." Maggie smirked, as they clinked and each took a sip.

A few minutes later, they were sat at the table sharing comfortable small talk and eating. But Alex finally felt it time to come out with her hidden agenda.

"So… I know it's only been a week, but… I really feel like we should talk about what happened at CADMUS."

Maggie stopped chewing, and swallowed, before shaking her head with a small smile. "I should have known 'just a romantic dinner' was too good to be true."

Alex frowned, but Maggie continued before she could interrupt. "… But I think you're right."

"So…" Alex honestly didn't think it through. It was already hard enough to get herself hyped about talking 'torture' with her girlfriend, let alone how to break the ice on it.

"Those rotating walls were pretty fucked up." Maggie supplied with a shaky grin. "Not to mention the dark."

"I just…" Alex wiped her mouth and put her napkin down. "I kept on hearing you. All over. Everywhere I turned. And Lillian was playing tricks on me. She probably used a voice modulator, because you were screaming, and begging me to tell her about Supergirl to make her stop hurting you."

Maggie wasn't laughing anymore. She looked dead serious, listening to Alex talk.

"But I knew it wasn't you. You wouldn't beg like that. And then when I told her to go to hell, somehow… I had a feeling that she was going to do something to you… The _real_ you. I didn't know if anything that I'd seen or heard was real."

"Why did you tell Lillian the truth about Kara?" Maggie asked quietly, looking her girlfriend in the eyes. "You could have lied. You knew that I could have taken it."

"Well, none of it would have mattered if she'd killed you, Mags." Alex said sincerely. "I knew that if I saw your… your _brains splattered all over the wall_ , I would have told her anyway."

"Alex, you wouldn't have-…" Maggie started, but Alex shook her head. "I'm not that strong, Maggie. You matter to me… Way too much to just brush it off and keep my mouth shut."

"So… Is Kara in danger now?" The detective tried to shift the conversation.

"She's being extra cautious whenever she goes out as a civilian, yes. And we have agents of the DEO near her at all times, keeping an eye on her in case somebody attacks her with kryptonite."

"That's a risk." Maggie frowned. Alex nodded, and shrugged. "You know it, I know it. Even Kara knows, stubborn as she is. But not doing it is an even bigger risk. And keeping her locked up at the DEO isn't going to solve anything either."

They fell into an only slightly uncomfortable silence after that, as Maggie stared down at her plate, trying to process the things Alex had said during her explanation. But finally she couldn't keep the question on her mind in any longer.

"Do you think… We'll be okay?"

Alex looked at her, initially unsure how to interpret the question. Was she talking about physical health? Mental health? Or was she talking about whether their relationship would survive all the obstacles that had been, and would be thrown in their path?

Alex decided that all three questions would be answered with just a few words, and she said them as sincerely as possible while holding her girlfriend's hand.

"If we're together and we keep believing in each other, we'll be fine."

Maggie smiled at Alex's words, and leaned in for another kiss. This time, it conveyed much more than just a simple 'I missed you at work'. It meant the world, it meant everything.

And they only pulled apart when a loud _crash_ made both of them look up.

Something big smashed the window, sending glass flying everywhere. Maggie shoved Alex on the ground, out of the trajectory of the glass shards. When the loud noise died down, both of them looked up.

In the center of the room lying in a pool of glass shards, was a figure dressed in red and blue.

Alex yelled out her sister's name and ran towards her, dropping on her knees next to her. Maggie winced as she heard the glass shards crunching underneath Alex's knees and leg, but decided that those cuts were minor when she saw the state Kara was in.

The blonde was taking labored breaths, her head turning from side to side, and her face locked in a permanent grimace of pain.

But all of that was nothing compared to the sight of the arrow stuck in her chest, blood leaking out. And a note attached to it.

_Figures that a sci-fi organization against aliens would resort to medieval ways to get their message across_ , Maggie thought. Because who else could have done it?

Her fears were confirmed when she gently pulled the note from the arrow, wincing as Alex pulled it out of Kara's chest and threw it away as quickly as possible, noting the green tip.

"I w-was p-patrolling a-and it j-just c-came out of n-nowhere…" Kara stumbled to get the words out. Alex shushed her gently and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm going to get you to the DEO, okay? You need to be under the sunlamps to recover."

"Alex?" Maggie said, beckoning her over. As Kara began to heal slowly, Alex managed to pull her to her feet and walk her to the couch before getting to Maggie's side.

Not wanting to worry Kara any further, Maggie just turned the note to her so Alex could read it.

_Dear Alex, Maggie,_

_As you can see, nobody is safe. The next shot won't be a warning._

_I hear you're looking for me. I'm pleased to announce that you don't have to look any further._

_The both of you are meeting me on the roof of the L-Corp building at 9 PM._

_If you bring back-up, your sister will be killed._

She'd even signed the damn note with an autograph.

_Lillian fucking Luthor._


	2. Chapter 2

"We need to move, it's almost time."

In all honesty, Alex didn't care. She was too busy looking at her sister lying underneath the lamps that would make her better. Until the blonde moved and showed that she was okay, Alex had no intention of moving.

Next to her, Maggie took a deep breath and turned to face her. "Alex, I really think we should talk."

"About what? Going up there alone and getting kidnapped again? Or going up there with back-up and watching how my sister gets murdered?" Alex finally turned to face Maggie, snapping at her. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized that they'd been too harsh.

Maggie didn't move a muscle, and seemed unfazed by Alex's outburst. "Yeah. About those."

"I'm not leaving until I know Kara is alright." Alex said solemnly. Maggie glanced at the blonde in the medical ward, but then continued. "If you don't want to go, I'll go by myself."

Alex finally looked back at that, scoffing incredulously. "No you're not."

When Maggie didn't show any sign of indicating that it had been a joke, Alex raised an eyebrow. "You actually think that she's going to show up in the middle of National City on a _rooftop_ , where she can't run? It's going to be a trap, Maggie. I'm not letting you walk into a trap."

Maggie watched her girlfriend walk back into Kara's recovery room, and hold her hand. She felt her back pocket for the note Lillian Luthor had left, and worried her lip between her teeth.

They hadn't told anybody about the note. Mainly because it was after 8 pm, and nobody was in. Alex hadn't thought about calling J'onn for the past 15 minutes they'd been here as she was too occupied with her sister, and Maggie quite frankly didn't care.

She knew that they were going to end up on the roof tonight. She could either be the considerate girlfriend and try to talk Alex into going, or she could be Maggie, and go there anyway, regardless of what Alex thought of her.

After all, it was better to apologize than to ask for permission anyway.

And Maggie's fist itched to meet Lillian Luthor's face. Numerous times.

Because after what that woman and her organization had done to her, Maggie almost felt it justified to watch her bleed.

She knew that Alex couldn't stay mad at her, and that she'd just been terrified out of her mind for Kara's safety. Once Kara would be okay, the agent would snap back into professional mode and go after Lillian.

Only, Alex going after her was something Maggie didn't want, at all. Not because she was selfish… But because Lillian knew how much Alex meant to her.

And the previous kidnapping had been to get Kara's identity, but Maggie knew that the next one would be for her. And Lillian wouldn't hesitate to bring Alex along for the ride.

_But she had to tell Alex the truth first._

A movement out of the corner of her eyes made her look up, as she saw Kara slowly blink back into consciousness, and Alex standing over her, talking to her quietly.

She witnessed a Kara-Alex hug, and that was all Maggie needed to get to work.

Her watch told her it was 8.14. They still had 45 minutes to make their rendezvous with Lillian. And as Alex, in her hug, looked up to see her girlfriend looking at her watch, she knew that the both of them had to go.

* * *

8.52. Eight more minutes.

Alex rested her head on the passenger side window of Maggie's car as she stared at the clock. They were parked in front of the L-Corp building, but ever since she'd pulled the parking brake, Maggie had shown no signs of getting out of the car.

"Before we do this… Before we go up there…" Maggie started. Alex noticed how much her girlfriend was shaking, based on the way her fingers trembled against the steering wheel.

Maggie took a shaky breath. "Alex, you need to know the truth."

Alex's stomach clenched as her earlier thoughts surfaced again.

The detective closed her eyes. "But I'm… _so scared_ to tell you, because it's all so vague and… I…" She hesitated. "… I did bad things, Alex."

"We both have…" Alex said, trying to ease Maggie's mind.

"No." Maggie shook her head. "I just…" She opened her mouth a few times to try and get the words out, but then sighed. " _God,_ I-I can't."

Alex frowned. "Maggie, whatever it is, you can tell me…"

Before either of them could talk again, both their phones beeped at the same time, showing that they'd received a message. Alex reached into her pocket, and saw that the message came from a blocked number.

_I don't like to be kept waiting._

"I guess that's our cue." Alex said, as she got out of the car and reached for the automatic weapon in the back seat. "You coming?"

Maggie nodded slowly, checking if her sidearm was still in its holster, before getting out of the car, dread settling in her stomach.

* * *

Confirming their expectations, Lillian Luthor was standing on the rooftop, surrounded by four drones circling the sky. They looked like they were guarding, but both women knew that they wouldn't hesitate in firing lasers at them the second they decided to do anything stupid.

"Why, what a lovely surprise! Both of you!" Lillian smirked. "But I'm afraid I feel some hostility between us?"

Alex looked down at the assault rifle in her hands. "Tell that to your drones, Luthor. Your message didn't say to come unarmed."

"Ah, well, I suppose the semantics of my letter are up to debate… But if you'll drop your weapons I'll do the same."

"Aint gonna happen." Maggie shook her head, taking a step forward and pulling her gun out of her holster. Alex felt her stomach jump at the risk, and saw how the drones now all turned to Maggie, their eyes glowing a dangerous, warning red.

"Now, now, Maggie. That's no way to treat an old friend." She almost looked offended, before turning to Alex. "How is your sister, by the way? Did she get the message?"

"Loud and clear." Alex hissed back, trying her best to keep calm at the woman's threatening yet sickly sweet tone. She put a hand to Maggie's back, trying to tell Maggie to take a step back and lower her weapon, but the detective wasn't having any of it.

"What you did to me…" Maggie growled, taking another step forward. This time, Alex responded. "Maggie, _come back_!"

Another step. "What you made me _do_ …"

Lillian didn't seem bothered by the fact that Maggie was walking up to her slowly, like a hunter stalking its prey. Instead, that same old smirk stayed plastered on her face. And for a second, Alex actually thought the entire drama of last week had been nothing compared to what she was about to see.

Maggie's body being shredded by those drones' lasers, or bullets, or _worse_ …

"You're not going to shoot me, Maggie. We both know it. So why don't you just put down the gun and we can talk business."

Alex tried to see her girlfriend's face, but she was facing her back. "Maggie, lower your gun. Turn around, get back here."

"I'll admit, I was surprised." Lillian and Maggie now only had eyes for each other, as the detective listened to the woman speak. "I didn't think you'd survive that little equipment bug. But then you did, and you exceeded expectations in handling the situation. You jumped back up, like a phoenix… But then you couldn't kill Supergirl."

"Maybe your little mind controlling game wasn't strong enough." Maggie smirked, before it morphed into absolute anger.

"Or… Maybe… Killing Supergirl just felt too familiar for you? Isn't that right, Maggie?"

Alex froze. _Familiar…?_

"Oh!" Lillian smirked. "Well, judging by the look on agent Danvers' face, I don't think you told her about that part of you… That part that loved killing aliens? That part that simply… _lost control_ whenever something non-human came near you… That part of you that enjoyed spilling alien blood over and over again?"

"Shut up!" Maggie clicked the safety off her gun, and pointed it right at Lillian's face.

Alex couldn't breathe.

Maggie turned around to face her, but instead of yelling at her how Lillian was playing another one of her mind tricks…

She saw tears in the detective's eyes.

And that made it all _so much worse_.

"No…" Alex shook her head, feeling bile rise up in her throat. Her girlfriend, the woman she loved, the reason why she'd go to the end of the world and back… Had killed aliens? By the dozen, according to Lillian…?

"Oh, I'm sorry you had to find out this way, agent Danvers. I'm sure she would have told you, you know, if you didn't have a superhero alien sister… I can't imagine the turn-off that must be, right, Maggie?"

" _Stop talking_!" Maggie yelled back at Lillian, tears streaming down her face.

"Sure, _now_ you want to be the alien-loving detective you claim to be... But what did that take, Maggie?" Lillian continued.

"Maggie, what… I…" Alex ignored the blonde woman's encouraging smirk, instead she tried to focus only on the sight of her girlfriend. "What's going on?!"

And when Maggie finally turned around to face her, lowering her gun to look Alex in the eyes, the agent's world actually stopped.

"Detective Sawyer here used to be one of CADMUS' best assets."


	3. Chapter 3

Lillian Luthor had a field trip watching the emotions unfold on Alex Danvers' face after she dropped the bomb on her.

Maggie was staring at the ground, clenching her eyes shut while tears slipped through them and fell onto the ground. Her left hand balled up into a fist, her right still loosely holding the gun, pointing it to the floor.

"Well, seems like this rendezvous didn't really work out. Maggie, dear, if you're interested, I'm sure we can get you your old job back. You know where to find me, you always have." Lillian smiled, while walking to the edge of the roof as a helicopter soared through the sky, allowing Lillian to gracefully step inside and fly off.

As soon as it was just the two of them, Alex turned around, throwing her weapon on the ground and turning to her girlfriend. "How… How _could_ you?!"

"Alex, it's not-…" Maggie tried weakly, but Alex was having none of it. "Not what?! Not what it looks like?! Is that what you were going to say? Because from what I can tell it's not that hard to understand!"

Maggie took a shaky breath, and looked up at Alex, tears running down her face. "You're right! There's nothing I can say that's going to change your mind about me. But we can use this. She said it, and you _know_ it, I changed! I would never let an alien come to harm if I had a say in it!"

"Yeah, unless it's my _sister_ and you're trying to beat the crap out of her with kryptonite." It was a low blow, but Alex honestly didn't care. She still felt her heart shattering at the confession, and it seemed like everything she knew about the detective was now a lie.

She turned around. "I'm done, Maggie. I'm fucking done. Go join her for all I care."

"Alex, wait-!" Maggie cried, but the agent didn't respond and walked over to the rooftop exit before she could say anything else.

* * *

"Alex?! What are you… Do you know what time it is?" Kara squinted at the sight of her sister standing in her hallway, but when she saw the state she was in, her eyes widened. "What happened?!"

She quickly let Alex inside and shut the door behind her. "Sit down, sit down…" She guided her sister to the couch, and made sure she was sitting before taking a seat on the other side and waiting patiently for her to speak.

"It's _Maggie_." Alex whispered, a fresh set of tears forming in her eyes. Kara's gaze became worried. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?!"

Alex scoffed, shaking her head. "She's… I don't want to see her, _ever_ again."

That made Kara frown. She knew that Maggie and Alex sometimes butted heads during their relationship, but they'd never come close to anything like a breakup before, especially not since the events of last week.

She gently stroked Alex's hair. "What happened?!"

Alex breathed in shakily. "S-she's one of them, Kara. She's CADMUS."

Kara laughed quickly, thinking for a second that her sister was playing a prank on her. But when she saw the tears still streaming down Alex's face, she frowned again. "No, Alex, there's no way Maggie is CADMUS. You guys were there, Lillian is probably playing one of her tricks."

"She said it herself, Kara. She used to kill aliens for CADMUS. She was one of their best 'assets'. She didn't deny what Lillian said."

"Wait, what do you mean 'what Lillian said'? Where did you hear that?"

"We… There was a note attached to the arrow they shot you with."

Kara's eyes widened comically. "Please don't tell me you actually went to her without backup?!"

"If we brought backup, she'd have killed you. And she wasn't joking around, okay? That arrow scared me way too much."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "But that didn't mean you were justified to go on some suicide mission to hunt Lillian Luthor if she makes the rules! You could have gotten hurt!"

"I _did_ get hurt, Kara." Alex whispered, shaking her head. "She was right. All of the stupid psychological mind games didn't even _fucking_ matter. She's been lying to me. To _us_. Since day one."

"I don't understand, Alex. How could she be CADMUS? What happened? Did she tell you?"

"I… I said I was done. I didn't need to hear it, Kara." Alex sniffed. "This isn't even about CADMUS. It's about her lying to me."

"So… She killed aliens? Then why is she now such a big fan of aliens and trying to keep them safe? I don't get it."

"Kara, I don't _know_ , okay! We didn't exactly talk it through over coffee, she broke my heart! I don't want to talk about it! I… I…" Alex tried to form more words, but she was overrun by sobs. She felt Kara rub her hands over her back, but the only thing on her mind was _why Maggie?_

As the blonde comforted her sister, she tried to get out of her denial. She knew Maggie. At least, she thought she did. Maggie was smart, strong, and always protecting justice done to aliens. The thought of that all being a lie…

She couldn't. She wouldn't believe it until she knew for sure. So she left Alex in her apartment with a bottle of scotch – not Kara's best idea, but she knew that her sister would find it in her bar anyway, might as well spare her the trouble – and flew off into the night.

She figured there were only two places Maggie could be – the bar or her own apartment. And she figured both of them would involve a lot of alcohol. But an embarrassed, vulnerable Maggie wouldn't be out in public, so she settled for flying over to her place.

The window was cracked open, and Kara wasn't wearing her Supergirl outfit, so she peered through the window, not wanting to break in. She saw Maggie sitting at her table, her head in her hands and her form shaking, as if she were crying.

Instead of coming in through the window, Kara figured she had a better chance of getting somewhere if she actually stood at the door, so she quickly sped to the other side, into the hallway, and knocked.

She heard Maggie trying to compose herself, unlocking the door and cracking it open. When she saw Kara standing in the doorway, she closed her eyes, shook her head and closed the door again.

Kara had expected something among those lines, and yelled against the wood. "I just want to talk, Maggie."

She remembered the situation a week ago, where she had to confront Maggie about her being stubborn and pushing Alex away like it was yesterday. Only this time, Kara wasn't in a mood for circling around the detective. She loved Maggie like she was her sister, and she was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and let her speak, but if anything showed that what Alex told her was the whole truth, that Maggie had been pulling some kind of CADMUS long con, then she wouldn't be responsible for her actions, and punch Maggie's face as a direct proxy for Lillian Luthor's.

"Maggie, I don't want you to be alone right now." Kara leaned her forehead against the door. "There has to be more to that story."

"Leave me alone, Kara."

"If you want me to go, if you _really_ want me to go, then say it again and I'll leave. But if you want to tell your story, I will listen. You don't have to open the door. I can stay here, you don't have to look at me."

Kara sighed, and turned around, putting her back against the hallway and preparing for Maggie to send her away one last time. But when she heard footsteps, and the sound of the door unlocking, she was actually surprised.

She carefully shuffled inside, and took a seat at the table, trying not to notice the numerous empty bottles of beer. Maggie took the chair facing her, and rubbed a hand through her eyes. "I tried to tell her. Before we went to meet Lillian. I honestly tried. I knew that Luthor was going to throw it in my face and gloat about it."

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't… know how to say it." Maggie shrugged weakly, with a sad smile. "I should have said it a long time ago, I just…"

"Maggie, this isn't _just_ about CADMUS. I'll admit, it's terrifying, but this is about you lying about who you are since day one that you met Alex. I understand why she's like this, you broke her heart. This isn't like when you told her about your diabetes, that's one thing. This is completely different."

"I know." Maggie looked down in shame. "It was…" She trailed off, staring at a spot on the table. "It was my first month as a detective in National City. I was put on the metahuman task force, and I was patrolling. I passed a shady part of town, and I saw these guys standing around a girl. She looked absolutely terrified, so I figured they were assaulting her."

Kara listened intensely, a part of her hoping that she could at least identify with the story Maggie was telling, to try and understand what could drive her to such grave things. She felt the need to show the detective that she was there for her, at least. So she grabbed her hand gently, ready to pull back if she sensed that Maggie was uncomfortable. But that moment didn't come, so she settled on listening.

"I walked up to them, asked her if she was okay. She was crying. Those guys, they were all over six feet. Told me to stay out of it. I wouldn't. They came up to me, I couldn't… Hold them off all at a once. I saw they were aliens, so I grabbed my taser but they disarmed me. I was losing… And I remember thinking 'it's either me and this girl, or them.' So I grabbed my gun, and I started shooting. I didn't stop until none of them were moving, until I was sure they were dead."

"Okay, well, that sounds like self-defense... A little over the top, I'll admit, but…" Kara said carefully. Maggie shook her head. "Filled out the reports, didn't get suspended, but only because that girl testified that I was saving her life. And then… When I was walking out of the precinct, she was waiting for me."

"The girl?"

"Lillian Luthor." Maggie winced. "She heard what I did to those aliens. She told me she was part of an organization that needed an alien expert for one of their cases. She flattered me, told me it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. So me, being the idiot that I was, I said yes."

Kara choked at the sight of Maggie's eyes brimming with tears again. " _God_ , I'm such an idiot…"

"Hey, it's okay…" Kara rubbed the back of Maggie's hand with her thumb. "You know that's what she does. She takes people and manipulates them."

"It started out innocent, you know? I'd go along with their scientist, try to get some DNA or data from an alien out on the street. I told them which alien, what they were like… Eventually that turned into what their weak spots were and where they should aim their darts and bullets… I didn't see it until it was too late. Until they had an entire cell block filled with aliens taken against their will."

That still didn't explain how Maggie went from accomplice to killing machine. Kara braced herself for the next part of the story as she felt Maggie's hand squeezing hers.

"They… Brainwashed me. They made aliens feral, and sent them after me to attack me, to convince me that all aliens were dangerous. I was defending myself at first, and then… All of it just grew into hatred. I was tired, I was _so tired_." Maggie sighed. "And then finally I snapped."

Kara didn't need to hear the rest. She had a pretty good idea of what CADMUS would be capable of. And she didn't want the details. Maggie still seemed too traumatized about the whole deal, so she looked more than happy to skip that part.

"What changed?" Kara looked up at her, trying to see Maggie's eyes as the eyes of a murderer, as the eyes of somebody who rubbed shoulders with Lillian Luthor.

But it was hard to. Almost impossible. Because she saw nothing but regret in those brown eyes. Shame, disappointment. Heartbreak. And regret.

"I don't remember." Maggie sniffed, shaking her head. "That was what Lillian Luthor wanted to know, that was why she kidnapped me and Alex… Something happened out in the field when I was supposed to bring an alien in for experiments, and all of a sudden I didn't want to do it anymore."

"So… What… I don't understand." Kara frowned.

"I was one of Lillian's favorites." Maggie grunted. "So I walked up to her and I told her I couldn't kill aliens anymore. That's all I remember. I think they wiped my memory, or something, after that. Because the next thing I remember is stumbling into that alien bar and… Trying not to be frightened at how many threatening aliens were around me. And then I realized that they weren't threatening at all… They were just having a drink, trying to have a good time."

Kara stayed silent, trying to process all of the information.

"I kept on having nightmares about vague things I remembered about that day, but I still haven't managed to remember what happened exactly. And so I… I promised myself that I would never let someone fuck with my head like that ever again, and I promised I'd keep aliens safe from threats like CADMUS, because I know the things they do to them, and how much they hate anything that isn't human."

Kara looked at her. "And this is it?"

"This is what?"

"The truth? The whole truth? Because if I find out tomorrow that there is more to this story…"

Maggie shook her head. "That's all. But… How was I supposed to tell Alex? Tell you?! CADMUS is hunting you down, they won't stop until they kill you. I… I loved Alex too much, Kara. I couldn't… I didn't want to lose her like that. And now I lost her for good."

"Alex…" Kara sighed. "She's going to turn around, okay? But you need to give her time."

"I don't _deserve_ her time!" Maggie got up and threw one of the empty bottles of beer against the wall in frustration. Kara winced as it shattered, watching Maggie pull at her own hair in frustration. "I _fucked_ it up, Kara! I hurt her, I hurt you! Lillian is after me! Alex will never want to see me again!"

"I'm taking you to the DEO." Kara looked at her, seriously. "You're not safe walking around. They're going to come back for you to either brainwash you again, or kill you."

Maggie was breathing heavily, thick tears running down her face, and whispering. "I don't… I don't want to _fight_ anymore. I don't…"

"Let me take care of you, Maggie." Kara wrapped her arms around the detective, walked her to her open window, and took off towards the DEO building.


	4. Chapter 4

When the two of them arrived at the DEO, Kara honestly had no idea where to go. It was the middle of the night, and the sole DEO agents scattered around on watch didn't pay attention to them whatsoever, apart from a curt, polite nod.

"Uh…" Kara tried to cover up the fact that she was improvising, but Maggie sensed what the problem was. "You don't want to lock me up in a cell, do you?"

"No, of _course_ not!" Kara shot back quickly, scoffing as if the mere thought of putting Maggie in a glass box was ridiculous.

But she couldn't deny that the thought hadn't crossed her mind.

"What do you want, Kara? I get that you want to keep me here but I need to go to work in the morning. You can't keep me here for hours."

All of a sudden, an idea crossed Kara's mind. She grabbed Maggie by the wrist and pulled her through a maze of hallways and doors, to eventually usher her inside a room and close the door behind her.

Maggie looked around. "Is this the… kryptonite room Alex told me about?"

"Yeah." Kara nodded, before moving to the control panel and setting the kryptonite exposure to low. Immediately, the room glowed green. Maggie was fascinated, but also turned to Kara nervously, not knowing what to expect next.

The irrational part of her actually fearing that Kara might want to fight with her.

But when Kara sighed and crossed her arms, looking away, Maggie relaxed slightly. She waited for Kara to talk.

"Do you remember being at CADMUS?" The blonde's eyes settled on hers.

Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat, and nodded. "Vaguely, yes."

"Do you know anything about the locations? Is there a pattern, or a list somewhere with all their properties?"

Maggie thought for a second, but then shrugged. "Kara, I… The only things I remember from CADMUS are weird, blurry flashbacks and nightmares I've had. I kind of reconstructed what happened in my head based on what I can remember, but I… I don't know."

Kara frowned. "I was thinking, on the flight here. Maybe we need to be one step ahead of them."

"What do you mean?"

Kara looked around at the ceiling and walls of the room. "There are no cameras here. I had them all taken away so this could be my safe space at the DEO. Nobody knows about this, nobody in the DEO _can_ know about this. But… What if we use you to take down Lillian Luthor for good?"

Maggie wanted to smirk. The thought of killing Lillian with her own bare hands had never been so appealing. But instead of that, she felt the fear settle in her stomach. "Kara, I…"

"I know that you're scared. I'd be terrified. But Lillian still seems to like you, she wants you back as a soldier for CADMUS. Maybe she still has some sort of control over you. But if we can make her believe that you're back under her influence, that you'll hurt me to gain her trust… Maybe we can get you back inside CADMUS."

"I don't want to hurt you, Kara." Maggie stepped back, turning around and clenching her eyes shut. "I _can't_. Not again."

"But for a chance to finally get your revenge on that woman?!" Kara took a willful step into her direction, turning so that she was facing the detective. "Maggie, she _ruined_ your life! This might be the only thing we can do to make up for that. It's either that, or waiting for her to kidnap you and kill me."

Maggie took a shaky breath, still unsure what she really wanted. "How… How are you going to explain that to Alex? If she watches me join CADMUS it's over. And if she watches me _hurt_ you, even if it's staged, I think she'll be much more eager to put a bullet between my eyes than Lillian could ever be."

"Give…" Kara sighed. "Give me time, okay? I'll explain everything to her. I don't think you're going to be able to solve that, but you need to trust me that Alex is going to come around."

" _But what if she doesn't_ …" Maggie whispered, feeling tears filling up her eyes once again. Kara shook her head quickly. "Maggie, Alex loves you too much. She'll understand."

Kara looked away, and turned back to the door. "Stay here, okay? Don't leave the DEO, don't talk to anyone, especially not about this. I'm going to go see if she wants to talk. And if she doesn't, well… I guess we're going to have to go without her."

* * *

"Hey, Al… How are you feeling?" Kara winced at the sight of the bottle she'd given Alex, empty and on the ground. Her sister was sitting on the couch, staring ahead. Her eyes still red from crying. As a response, Alex just gave a weak shrug. "I don't know."

"Listen, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I talked to her. And I heard the story."

"It's all lies, Kara." Alex whispered. "Everything she says is a lie. Everything's just some new made up story to change who she is. I don't even know who she is."

"Yes, you do." Kara looked at her. "She's Maggie. She's a great cop, she always beats us at Clue on board game night, and she loves bonsai trees-…"

Alex interrupted her, fresh tears leaking down her face. "Stop, Kara. Please, just stop."

"Nothing _changed_ , Alex. She made a mistake that she didn't even _make_ because Lillian manipulated her, they brainwashed her and they wiped her memory!" Kara was getting slightly impatient now. If Alex just _listened_ for one second, she'd hear the truth!

"I thought she _loved_ me, Kara!" Alex now yelled, sobbing. "I thought she _cared_ about me, and that we could tell each other everything! I wanted to _marry_ her and spend the rest of my life with her, but she never let me in, or told me anything true about herself! How am I supposed to feel?!"

In all honesty, Kara didn't know how to respond to that. She never thought that Alex had already considered asking Maggie to marry her.

She realized that Alex's wounds were too fresh to get inside her head with the truth. And fair enough, it had only been less than three hours since the bomb had been dropped on her. Kara knew that she was being unfair.

But she also knew that the plan couldn't wait.

She looked at her sister with a sad smile, and kissed the top of her head. "I'm going to go back to the DEO, okay? You stay here, and get some rest."

"Why are you going to the DEO?"

Kara hesitated. She wanted to tell Alex the truth about the plan she had. But that would make it all so much more complicated.

So instead, she just smiled at her weakly. "Just some things I need to take care of. Don't worry about it."

As she left her sister in her apartment, she knew that she was making a mistake. A mistake that would probably cost her the last bit of trust and faith that Alex still had in Maggie.

But if it meant saving both of them from CADMUS and Lillian Luthor, she'd take it.

And the moment she set foot in the DEO, seeing Maggie stand in the command center, her arms wrapped around herself, she knew that there was no other way.

Maggie had to get back into CADMUS, and destroy it from the inside.


	5. Chapter 5

"Lillian said that I would know how to contact her." Maggie bit her lip as she leaned against the wall of the kryptonite room, staring ahead. "That I had always known how to find her, but I honestly can't remember."

"Maybe it's not a mental thing?" Kara theorized. "Maybe it's something that they gave you, like a beacon?"

Maggie seemed to give that a lot of thought, but came up dry. "I'm sorry, Kara."

The blonde hummed. "Okay, well, plan B it is."

The detective didn't like plan B. At all. "Maybe there's another way…?"

Kara eyed Maggie skeptically. "If you know anything that we could use, fantastic."

Maggie shook her head slowly, admitting defeat. "What are you suggesting?"

"We need to make sure that Lillian is under the impression that you're back under her thumb. So…" Kara sighed. "We can't just go around with you throwing punches and attacking me. They'll know something is up."

Maggie nodded slowly, assuming that Kara had a solution to the problem.

The blonde winced. "But they kidnapped you because they wanted to enhance you with that kryptonite to hurt me. So… My best guess is to use that."

Maggie's stomach dropped. "You want to… You want to inject kryptonite into me again?"

Kara seemed more than uncomfortable, but shrugged. "Lillian said that their kryptonite was indestructible. We haven't been seen together in public since the kidnapping, and Alex's antidote was a lucky shot. Maybe we can make it seem like you didn't completely get the kryptonite removed out of your system, you go rogue and attack me."

The detective realized that Kara's plan made a lot of sense, but she was honestly terrified of what it entailed. The blonde noticed her discomfort, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, if… If you _really_ don't want this, I can't force you. But I think we need to make this worse before we can make it better… Look, there's a DEO storage unit filled with kryptonite in the desert, a couple of miles away. There have been experiments here with injecting kryptonite into humans. I don't know a lot about it, because Alex refused to work on it, but those experiments should be locked up there with the rest of it."

Maggie paused for a second, before looking her in the eyes. "When do you want to do it?"

"Whenever you're ready. But we can't wait too long, or the story is going to lose credibility."

"Let's get to work, then."

She tried not to show Kara how much her hands were shaking.

* * *

Getting to the storage was easy. A couple of minutes of flying, and the both of them landed in the sand at the entrance. But upon arrival, Kara realized the first flaw in her plan.

She didn't have security clearance _remotely_ sufficient to open secure storage units.

The only two people in her mind that did were Alex and J'onn. And she wanted neither of them to actually know about it, since the former was still too angry at both of them to be rational about the plan, and the latter would straight up forbid them to take the risk.

Of course, that hadn't particularly stopped Kara in the past.

"What are you waiting for?" Maggie asked, seeing the hesitation in Kara's stance. "Uh… Well, I can't open the door because I'm not part of the DEO."

"I kind of figured that breaking in was part of the deal…?" Maggie frowned. "You badging in to a room filled with the only thing that kills you would kind of raise some question marks. Just destroy the lock with your heat vision, I'll slip inside and get it."

Kara motioned for her to step back and shield her eyes as she blasted the keypad with her lasers. Within seconds, the both of them heard a click.

As Maggie stepped forward and snuck inside the door, a loud alarm started blaring. She instinctively covered her ears at the noise, and barely managed to dodge a laser beam, hearing it buzz next to her ear. " _Shit…_ " _She_ fell to the ground, seeing the laser grid that had appeared by opening the door.

Narrowly avoiding colliding with one of the beams, she managed to safely cross it while moving through the rows of crates and cases.

She saw a flight case standing at the other side of the room and sprinted towards it, clicking it open. Inside were a handful of syringes, but the case didn't have a label or tag that showed what kind of kryptonite it was.

Though she didn't need to search for it, as a red box higher up grabbed her attention. It screamed _'stay away'_ , so Maggie instinctively knew that it was what she'd been looking for.

"Maggie, we're running out of time!" She heard Kara's voice behind her through the still deafening tones of the alarm.

She reached for the box, and clasped it into her hands, clicking it open just to check.

Inside, she found a single syringe, along with a folder that probably had the details of the experiment. She read the title, and knew that she had the right case, grabbing it in both of her hands and sprinting out of the room.

"Did you get it?!" Kara shouted at her. She saw the case clutched in Maggie's arms, and pulled her into the air, getting as far away from the storage as possible, and flying over to Maggie's apartment.

* * *

In Kara's apartment, Alex was abruptly woken up by the sound of her phone ringing.

She reached for it, saw that it was work, and shot up straight, trying not to make it sound like she'd been sleeping. "Danvers."

"Agent Danvers, we need you to come in." The voice on the other line said. Alex vaguely recognized the voice as one of her colleagues. "There's been an emergency."

Alex was already jumping around on one leg to put on her shoes and coat, pulling her phone between her ear and her shoulder to have her hands free. "What is it?"

"A break in at the desert storage."

"The kryptonite unit?!" Alex's eyes widened. That _never_ meant good news. "I'm on my way. Ten minutes."

She disconnected, ran to the bathroom to splash some water in her face, and left for work. Her gut told her that the night wasn't over yet.

Sure enough, when she walked back into the command center, she met up with her fellow agent that had called her in. "Director Henshaw is on his way, he'll be here in thirty minutes."

"What do we know?"

"Well…" He hesitated. "Everything."

He swiped up to activate the big monitor in front of them, and pulled up the surveillance feed. "The alarm was set off by the motion sensors, which activated the camera."

He watched silently as Alex took in the sight of a shape running down the laser grid and making her way closer to the camera.

And when she realized who it was, all of the sadness and heartbreak she'd felt in the last few hours made room for pure hatred and anger.

Kara had _trusted_ Maggie. But she was going to pay the price.

And Alex saw red.

She turned away from the feed, balling her hands into fists, and looked at the agent. "Where is Supergirl?"

"Do you want me to activate her tracker?"

"I'm _ordering_ you to activate her tracker." Alex growled back, watching a map of National City appear on the screen, before the agent tapped a few times, and it zoomed in to a block on the east side, a blinking red dot appearing in one of the buildings.

Alex _knew_ it was Maggie's apartment before the image had even come into focus.

Without another word to the agent, she ran towards the armory, grabbed an automatic weapon and a taser, and walked out of the DEO, making her way to Kara.

Because she'd be damned if _anybody from CADMUS_ would hurt her sister again.


	6. Chapter 6

Maggie Sawyer didn't get cold feet.

At least, that's what she liked to think.

She was always level-headed, analytical, and stuck with a plan unless there was absolutely no other way.

But the syringe in her hand was making her stomach turn. And it wasn't a fear of needles or the injection itself – she was used to sticking needles in her skin at least five times a day – and it wasn't the fear of the kryptonite either.

Though she vividly remembered lying in the DEO ward, and _begging_ for death in exchange for getting five minutes without the feeling of liquid poison running through her veins.

Maggie hesitated at the thought of all the worst case scenarios that ran through her head. All the ways it could go wrong. And she knew that Kara trusted her, but who was to say that _if_ CADMUS made her do something to Kara, she could resist them? What if she _killed_ Kara?! _What if…_

Kara seemed to sense her discomfort, and put a hand on hers. "It's okay. We'll get through it." She grabbed the report they'd found in the box, and read through it quickly. "It says that they tried the experiment on humans, but that they couldn't get permission to get me involved, and therefore couldn't really know if it worked either way, so they decided to abandon it."

"Guess Alex had a say in that." Maggie smiled weakly. Kara put the report down and looked at her. "Well, this might be the only chance they have. We'll have to congratulate them if it works."

Maggie laughed, and took a deep breath, before Kara grabbed a piece of fabric Maggie had ripped from one of her old shirts, and applied it as a makeshift tourniquet to her biceps. She tightened it, and Maggie picked a vein in her lower arm.

"No going back now." Maggie chuckled humorlessly, before plunging the syringe into the vein, emptying it. Within seconds, she recoiled, dropping the syringe onto the ground.

"Maggie?!" Kara held her up by the shoulders, preventing the woman from collapsing. "Hey… Are you okay?!"

Maggie grunted, moaned, and thrashed about, and Kara finally saw the green pulsing through her veins. For a second, she allowed herself to smile at the fact that _at least it had worked._

But then the familiar nausea set in, and she coughed, jumping back to get away from Maggie, watching the detective tumble to the ground, twitching. "It's working!"

Maggie was panting, lying on her back in her own apartment and staring at her ceiling. "Yeah…" She groaned. "I think it is."

"How are you feeling?" Kara asked from the other side of the room, where the nausea was still present but she could manage.

"Million bucks…" Maggie tried to get up, but winced. "Nope… Nope, _not_ a million bucks… Holy _fuck_ that hurts…"

"Okay, so… Now we have to find a crime somewhere for me to stop."

Kara willed herself to use her super hearing. It was weakened by Maggie's presence, yet she could vaguely pick up the sound of a woman screaming in the distance. A car… Something with a car. Probably an accident.

"The highway, near the harbor…" Kara winced. "Car crash. I _think_ …"

"Got it…" Maggie moaned. "They'll be watching."

Kara changed into her Supergirl outfit, dropping her other clothes on the floor of the apartment, and dropping down from Maggie's window until she felt strong enough to fly.

Maggie watched her disappear into the sky, and slowly managed to get onto her knees, throwing her head back with a grunt. "After this, I need a fucking vacation…" She whispered to herself.

As she finally stumbled onto her feet, rubbing at the puncture wound in her arm that was still pulsing green, she walked to her window. The DEO kryptonite didn't enhance her, it just felt like she was burning inside. So leaping out of the apartment was out of the question.

But before she could walk to her door, she heard a key being slipped into the lock. Alarmed, she spun around and rolled her sleeves down, but before she could do anything else, the door was kicked open.

And in the doorway, looking more pissed than Maggie had ever seen her, was Alex. Holding an automatic. And pointing it at her face.

_Shit._

* * *

Kara had arrived at the wreck within seconds. She saw a woman in the driver's seat, yelling at her as she spotted the heroine. Kara ripped her door off the car.

"Please… my daughter… Please!" The woman yelled. As Kara turned to the backseat, she saw that it was completely empty. There was a kid's booster seat, but the kid itself was nowhere to be found. Kara frowned, and turned back to the mother, when she saw that the woman, bleeding and scared, had morphed into a grotesque, screeching alien.

_Shit._

Kara took a few steps back, but before she could, the alien had already lunged out of the car and pinned her against the ground. She tried to get away by punching, shooting lasers, and using her freeze breath, but the stupid thing didn't budge. Instead, it kept on screaming at her.

_Now would be a good time to come help out, Maggie._

She didn't know how long it would take the detective to come after her. So she had to take matters into her own hands. She pushed the alien away with all she had, and it distracted the thing long enough for her to speed away from it, flying up into the air and shooting lasers at it.

Eventually she found a weak spot: the back of its legs. So she settled on trying to aim for that, but the alien kept on turning around to face her, and she wasn't fast enough. It was a losing battle.

If she left now, she _had_ to call the DEO to take care of it. She couldn't just let that type of rogue alien roam through National City by itself.

But why would it fake a car crash? Why would-…

_Oh._

Her fears were confirmed as she felt it finally deliver a concussive blow to the ground, knocking her off balance. In that moment, he grabbed her by the head, and slammed her down onto the ground, until she felt herself slipping away.

_That wasn't part of the plan, at all._

Then it all went black.

* * *

"Where is she." Alex spat at Maggie, keeping the weapon trained on her forehead. "Alex, calm down-…"

"Don't you tell me to _fucking_ calm down!" The agent yelled, clicking the safety off. "I'm not going to ask you again nicely."

Maggie raised her hands in surrender. Upon doing so, Alex scoffed angrily. "I should have known you were worthless. I should have seen the signs."

"There _wer_ e no signs!" Maggie huffed. "Alex, you're seeing things! You're making connections that aren't there!"

"I'm giving you three seconds to tell me where CADMUS is, and what you did to my sister." Alex said, showing no signs of remorse, or backtracking. Maggie knew that she was playing with fire.

"I swear. On my…" She hesitated in calling a name. "… On my badge. On everything that I believe in, Alex. I had nothing to do with any of that."

Alex answered by firing a round into the wall next to Maggie, causing her to shrink away. She realized it was a warning shot. Alex wasn't in the mood for talking.

"Where. Is. Kara."

 _Fuck._ At that point, a small part of Maggie hoped that in time, when everything would hopefully have died down, she could take Alex into her arms and hold her, and forget that the warning shot had ever happened.

"She said she was going to help with a car crash on the highway, near the harbor. That's all I know, she left about two minutes ago."

"Where is the kryptonite you stole?!"

Maggie hesitated. If she wanted Kara's plan to succeed, she had to leave Alex out of it. But she knew how good of a shot Alex was. And she wasn't thinking straight.

So she had to abandon the plan. There was no possible way she could get out of this situation anyway. Might as well try to convince Alex.

"Kara wanted me to go back to CADMUS to infiltrate, because of how much Lillian liked me. But we had to sell the part, so she wanted me to inject myself with kryptonite again and we were going to stage that I was going to overpower her, to regain Lillian's trust. Kara opened the door to the storage, and I stole the kryptonite." Maggie gently pulled at her sleeve to reveal the glowing green again.

She saw Alex's eyes widen, as the agent seemed to hesitate. "Alex, you _know_ how much I suffered through getting that kryptonite out. You were _there_ all night, you held me, you saw how it almost killed me. Why would I do that to myself if I didn't have a good reason for it?!"

"No." Alex shook her head fiercely. "No, this is just more tricks. You're fucking with my head. Where is Kara!"

"Track her down?!" Maggie yelled. "Let me prove to you that nothing changed! Track her down and it'll show that she's where I say she is!"

Alex lowered the rifle, letting it dangle over her torso, but kept an eye on Maggie as she grabbed her cellphone, and tapped it. She accessed the DEO server, and opened the tracking software.

She chuckled as she saw the red dot appear, throwing the phone over to Maggie, who managed to get one glance at the map, seeing that Kara was in the middle of the desert.

"More lies." Alex hissed through her teeth.

Before Maggie could respond, she heard Alex fire a round, and felt a searing pain shoot up from her right upper thigh. She yelled out in pain before falling onto the floor, clutching her leg and feeling blood pool underneath her hands.

Footsteps approached her, as Alex leaned forward to grab her phone from the floor and then grabbed her by the front of her jacket, fire in her eyes as she growled at her. "I'm letting you live until I know that Kara is okay. Because if she's not… I'm going to hunt you down, and show you what it means to _fuck_ with someone's heart like that."

"A-Alex…" Maggie tried weakly, but Alex was already stomping away from her. Leaving her alone, a small pool of blood forming underneath her leg.

She knew she had to leave. She had to get help. She had to… Find Kara. Why was Kara in the desert?!

Until she realized that maybe Lillian had _again_ been one step ahead of them this entire time.

She reached for the piece of fabric again, tying the tourniquet around her thigh, and wincing as she got up. _With a bit of luck the kryptonite was pouring out, along with the blood._

A fucking bloodletting, maybe that would help.

As she cursed Lillian Luthor to the moon and back for every single thing she'd done to the three of them, Maggie stumbled out of her apartment and onto the street. If Alex was going to be so reckless as to go after Kara and take on CADMUS by herself, she needed to get the DEO involved.

The building wasn't all that far from her apartment, but it still took her a lot of time to finally drag herself into the command center, swaying unsteadily.

She felt a strong pair of hands wrap around her shoulders to hold her up, and heard a deep voice talking to her, but it was too distorted to understand.

"Alex… Help… CADMUS…" Was all she managed, before she finally collapsed.


	7. Chapter 7

When Kara slipped back into consciousness, she had a killer headache. For a second she thought that maybe she'd gone to the alien bar the night before and had the biggest hangover of her life.

But when the familiar, coppery smell of blood got into her head, she knew that something else was going on. She opened her eyes slowly, and was met with the sight of a CADMUS scientist, taking blood from one of her veins. She was strapped to a metal table, and tried to move weakly, but it wouldn't budge.

"Where is Lillian!" She said forcefully, trying to sound less terrified than she was.

The scientist didn't respond, but apparently Lillian had installed the speaker system again, because the hair on the back of Kara's neck stood up straight at hearing her smirk.

" _I'm here. Don't worry, Supergirl. The show is just about to start."_

As Lillian clicked the microphone off, she leaned back. Everything was going to plan.

One of her workers appeared next to her. "Miss Luthor? I have new information."

He handed Lillian a folder. She opened it, and smiled at the content.

Camera images of Alex and Maggie's standoff, in the detective's apartment. Alex shooting Maggie. Maggie falling to the ground. Alex standing over her.

Lillian looked up at him. "Perfect. Re-activate her, bring her here. Time for our phoenix to come home."

He nodded and walked off, and the blonde woman was left staring at the screen. Finally, she had what she needed. And she was going to enjoy every second of it.

* * *

She'd lost control again.

She knew it. Her mind had been so clouded with fear for her sister's safety that she'd slipped back into that mindset that she was so desperately trying to avoid. The dark, _horrible_ side to herself that Alex never wanted to see. That she never wanted anyone else to see.

She hadn't been thinking straight when she ran into Maggie's apartment and found her there. And she _definitely_ hadn't been thinking straight when she shot her.

The part of her that still loved Maggie, that _hurt_ more than anything, that just wanted to find an explanation to all this, couldn't believe that she actually _shot_ her girlfriend. But she couldn't let that part of her win right now. She had to stay alert, stay convinced that CADMUS was playing games. Otherwise, she'd break. That much she knew.

She got back to her own apartment, ignoring the bloody glass on the floor, where it had all gone wrong hours ago. Instead, she walked over to her gun safe, and unlocked it. Because next to her guns, documents and other important personal belongings, she found what she'd been looking for.

She hoped she wouldn't need it, but she wasn't going to sit around and wait to find out. So she left the apartment to make one last stop: the DEO.

After all, walking into CADMUS without any form of protection would be a death sentence. The least she could do was wear a bulletproof vest.

She entered the building and headed straight for the armory, changing into her work gear, and putting on Kevlar, before grabbing a tactical backpack and filling it with everything she could find that would somehow help her.

One of the perks of being the second-in-command to the director. Nobody would ask questions.

When she was satisfied with everything she packed, she headed into the command center to check Kara's location one last time, to make sure that her phone hadn't just glitched.

She didn't expect to find an unconscious Maggie Sawyer, in J'onn's arms, sliding down to the ground and bleeding all over the concrete floor.

J'onn looked up and saw Alex standing in the doorway, pulling Maggie into his arms and lifting her up. "Alex, she's been shot!"

A wide spectrum of emotions appeared on Alex's face, and J'onn frowned at how _passive_ Alex remained at hearing those words. Usually, Alex was on the front row to help Maggie, even if it was just a paper cut.

"Get to the ward!" J'onn said, running past Alex and into the medical ward. Alex hesitated, but didn't chase after him straight away. Instead, she walked over to the monitor, opening Kara's tracker. It was still somewhere in the desert.

At least she was right about that.

But as she closed the window, she saw that the security footage from the kryptonite storage was still open. The video was frozen on a frame of Maggie turned around towards the door, looking at something in the corner of the screen. Alex squinted, but managed to make out a foot standing in the doorway.

A red boot.

And her heart stopped.

Immediately, Alex scrambled to find another camera in the storage. She knew that there were at least two. She pressed a few buttons, overrode the _entire_ network with her access codes so that nothing would be hidden or censored, and immediately the other camera angle appeared.

The outside angle.

Her stomach dropped as she witnessed Kara landing in front of the entrance of the storage, with Maggie in her arms. Kara was hesitating. Maggie was talking, and then Kara motioned to step back, and _blasted the lock_. Maggie slipped inside, and Kara folded her arms impatiently, waiting. She seemed nervous.

Alex fast-forwarded to Maggie running back outside, clutching the red box. Alex _knew_ what that red box was, and she saw the look on Kara's face, as she mouthed ' _did you get it_?'

The cynic inside of her, the angry part, still tried to convince her that maybe Maggie was controlling Kara somehow. That she was ordering her sister to help her.

But the look on Kara's face, that gaze, Alex recognized all too well, because it was a look that was often cast her way too. It was Kara's way of saying ' _I care about you, please be careful_.'

And that, CADMUS couldn't fake.

Alex leaned back, shock overtaking her entire body. Her throat closed up, she felt like she couldn't breathe. What did that mean?

She activated Kara's tracker, and accessed the history. The kryptonite storage, then flying over to Maggie's apartment… And then she was on the move again, flying to a different part of town.

_The highway near the harbor._

Maggie had been telling the truth.

And Alex had _shot her_.

The second after that, she was barreling through the DEO on her way to the medical ward.

J'onn had put Maggie on one of the stretchers, and was holding gauze against the wound in her leg. A pile of discarded, soaked through pads on the floor. Alex tried to keep herself from vomiting at the sight, at the _thought_ of it being on her.

J'onn saw her enter. "Alex, I can only keep pressure, I don't know what to do!"

Immediately, she switched into doctor mode. She ran forward, stopping at Maggie's side, and grabbing forceps. She reached into the wound trying to find the bullet, as Maggie thrashed around, whimpering.

J'onn put a hand on Maggie's shoulder, waiting impatiently. Finally, Alex pulled away, holding a small piece of metal. "Got it." She stepped back and searched the cabinets around for thread and a needle.

" _Maggie, easy-…!"_ She heard behind her. She turned around, to see Maggie moving to sit upright. She moved to her side and gently ran her hand over Maggie's forehead. "Hey… No, Maggie, you need to lie down. I need to stitch your leg…"

The woman ignored her, and moved to swing her legs off the bed. J'onn frowned at Alex, as she crouched next to her to look Maggie in the eyes. "I'm sorry, Maggie. You were right, I… I don't even know how to _start_ apologizing for it."

She expected Maggie to finally face her, but instead she shifted her weight onto her legs to hop off the bed. Alex wrapped her arms around her to pull her back, seeing that she obviously wasn't in the right mindset. She couldn't let her get up.

Much to her surprise, Maggie proceeded to _shove_ Alex away by the shoulders. The agent had to take a few steps back, while J'onn intervened once again to pull Maggie's hands back.

"Don't _hurt_ her, J'onn, she's in shock!"

"No. She's not." J'onn growled, turning Maggie around to put both hands on her cheeks, looking her in the eyes. He saw how dilated her pupils were, and the glazed look she had. He turned back to Alex. "She's being controlled."

_CADMUS._


	8. Chapter 8

Alex eyed Maggie cautiously, waiting for her to make a move.

As the detective turned around to face Alex, she saw the glazed look in Maggie's eyes, and realized that J'onn was right. Maybe it was the blood loss, but there was definitely something wrong with her.

As Maggie put her weight on her injured leg, it buckled. Alex realized that it had been the same leg that she hurt during the collapse of the CADMUS facility, and the earlier guilt creeped into her body again. But right now Maggie earned nothing with apologies. Instead, she crouched down, instinctively trying to keep the detective upright.

"J'onn, you're a mind reader, what's happening?!"

"I don't know." J'onn answered. "Something is blocking her mind. It must be whatever CADMUS is doing to her."

Maggie snapped loose from Alex's grasp once again, and got up. Her movements were controlled and small, like a robot, and her eyes were staring blankly ahead.

"Maggie…? Can you hear me? It's Alex…"

For one second, Maggie's gaze turned to her girlfriend. In a flash, Alex saw recognition behind Maggie's eyes again, like she'd showed back in the facility when she was choking her.

"Al-…" Maggie could only grunt, before the serene gaze took over again. She turned around to face J'onn, who didn't know how to respond, and watched as Maggie started limping towards the door.

"We need to follow her. She's going to lead us to CADMUS." Alex said, eyeing her girlfriend and walking out behind her.

J'onn stayed back. "Alex, get back here. We need to know what we're dealing with first."

"What we're _dealing_ with?!" Alex turned around, an incredulous look on her face. "This is my sister, J'onn! My girlfriend! I can't sit around and devise tactical plans when they're getting killed!"

J'onn sighed, as he seemed to think for a second. "Track her. Stay close, but not too close. I'll follow you in the command center, and I'll assemble a strike team to back you up. But you do _not_ go in without back-up, do you hear me? That's an order, Alex. You're not taking risks by yourself."

"Understood." Alex nodded quickly.

"And put in your earpiece, I want you to check in every five minutes!"

Alex was already out the door, seeing Maggie leave through a hallway below her. She ran after her, and stayed a few feet behind her.

Maggie was mumbling something. The same thing, repeated over and over again. And as Alex tried to keep up with her, moving closer, she finally understood.

" _Phoenix_ … _Phoenix_ …"

She didn't know if Maggie was sending out a message to CADMUS, or maybe it was a code. She didn't know…

" _Alex_."

That, she understood. Maggie kept on walking, looking indifferent and neutral, but she was talking. Trying to communicate with her, inside a body that wasn't controlled by her anymore.

"Alex. _Phoenix_."

In her mind, Alex tried to remember everything about a phoenix. A mythical creature? Fire, flames? A city in Arizona…?

Maggie kept on repeating it until they were out on the street. Then, she stopped talking, and walked over to a car, Alex trailing behind her cautiously.

The detective moved over to the driver's side window, and Alex's eyes widened as she watched her raise her fist, and _punch_ through the glass. It shattered.

She knew Maggie worked out, but Maggie wasn't punching-through-glass strong.

_Probably another CADMUS present._

Maggie unlocked the door and got inside. Alex barely had time to get inside the passenger seat as she heard the doors click, and buckled her seatbelt before Maggie took off.

Alex knew that Maggie couldn't hear her, but she took a deep breath anyway, and started. "I'm sorry I doubted you. I never should have. Everything that we went through… I'm just… I'm so scared at how easy it was to get into my head and destroy everything I thought about you."

She looked at the driver's seat, where Maggie was focused on the road and unresponsive. So she continued. "Whatever happens, babe. I'll be there for you. We're going to make it through this. We've come so far."

Alex decided that those words were enough for now and leaned back, waiting for Maggie to drive them to their destination. As she glanced sideways, she saw a lone tear slip down her cheek, while the rest of her face didn't respond to it. She didn't make a sound.

But it was good enough for Alex. To know that Maggie was still in there. Was still fighting it.

A few minutes were spent in silence, before Alex heard a _beep_ in her earpiece. "Come in."

"Agent Danvers checking in." Alex said. The least she could do was act professional. Who knows what colleagues were listening in. She had to save _some_ face.

"Alex." J'onn's voice. "I'm tracking you, but you're not heading to Supergirl's location. Where are you?!"

"I'm in a car, Maggie's driving somewhere."

"Stay alert. It could be a trap. Strike team is deploying as soon as we know the location."

"Copy that."

Alex tapped her earpiece off again. Maggie hadn't responded to any of it.

All of a sudden, the car jolted to a stop as Maggie had pressed down onto the brake pedal, hard. Alex lurched forward, feeling the seatbelt leave a friction burn across her throat. She turned sideways, but saw that Maggie wasn't moving.

They were in the middle of a parking lot, in front of a wall with a garage door.

The car was standing still, the engine running. The woman was staring ahead. The silence scared Alex. As if Maggie was going to jump her any second.

But a low rumbling in front of her made her turn back to look through the windshield. The garage door was opening, and Maggie drove inside.

Behind them, she saw the door sliding back down, leaving them in darkness.

* * *

"Miss Luthor? They have arrived."

" _They_?" Lillian asked, raising her glass of wine.

The worker hesitated. "Yes. The asset, and agent Danvers."

That surprised Lillian slightly. She froze, the glass halfway to her mouth, before lowering it again. "Well, I suppose I'll have to deal with agent Danvers myself, then. Stick to the plan. We don't have much time left."

"Yes, ma'am." He left her. Lillian sighed, before getting up.

* * *

Alex tapped her earpiece. "J'onn?"

"Yes, Alex?" The booming voice sounded through her ear.

"I'm here. We're in a garage downtown, I think. It has to be another underground lab."

"Strike team is moving in on your location. ETA 10 minutes. Don't do anything stupid. Stay back, let Maggie go. We'll evacuate her once we're organized."

Alex trailed off watching Maggie get out of the car and walk around. All of a sudden, overhead lights flickered on, and Alex could now see that Maggie was standing next to a few cardboard boxes, pushing them aside to reveal a control panel. She pressed a button in the center.

As she did, the floor in front of the car started sinking, to reveal a staircase.

Alex got out of the car and ran towards her girlfriend, holding her arm to try and hold her back, and slipping something into her pocket simultaneously.

As Maggie snapped loose, her initial reaction was to follow her, seeing as the detective was now making her way to the stairs. But she knew better. She had to stay back and wait for back-up. As much as it broke her heart to see her go, she had to be rational. She was trained, she was professional.

Except for when it came to the people she loved.

So she settled on watching as her girlfriend disappeared into the darkness at the foot of the stairs. Within seconds, the staircase closed up again, returning to the dirty, tiled floor.

Before she could do anything else, the light switched off again, leaving her in complete darkness.

_Fucking CADMUS and its darkness._

A noise behind her startled her, and she spun around to face it. But she couldn't see her own hands in front of her. She reached for the gun in the holster on her hip, and cocked it.

"Oh, agent Danvers. There's no need for that."

Alex knew the voice in front of her. All too well. Only this time, it didn't sound like it was coming from a speaker.

Lillian Luthor was actually in the room with her.

"Really dramatic, the whole darkness thing." Was the first thing Alex could manage. Her earlier hatred aimed at Maggie was making its way back into her head, though she willed herself to stay calm, to stay composed. She couldn't make stupid decisions, now that CADMUS had the two people she'd die for.

"A magician should never reveal their secrets." She heard Lillian laugh. "Like how I made the love for your girlfriend disappear?"

"You'll _never_ have her, Lillian." Alex shook her head, though she knew that the woman couldn't see it. She still had her gun aimed, but couldn't make out where Lillian's voice was actually coming from.

"See, I think I had her before you even came into the picture. So she belonged to me first."

"What do you want? Why did you come here?!"

"Because, agent Danvers. For once, you were ahead of me. I didn't expect you to come along, because I thought that you actually meant it when you shot a bullet through her. My apologies. But credit where credit is due, it's a mistake I will not make again. And she'll be punished for being so… _negligent_."

"Where is Supergirl?"

"Always with the questions… It's honestly exhausting." Lillian tutted. "No worries, they're both safe. Finally, both of them back where they belong; under my wings. But you… You're not part of this picture. So I'm going to have to politely ask you to leave my property."

"And _I'm_ going to have to _politely_ ask you to kiss my ass." Alex growled, tiptoeing around with her gun raised. If she walked all around the room she'd find her eventually.

"Nice try, agent. But if I see you near this place again, I won't hesitate to kill either of them. They're important, yes. But all can be replaced. Oh, and call off the strike team, while you're at it. Unless you want me to send the DEO a few body parts with a nice little kryptonite bow on top."

The cold, calculated hatred in Lillian's voice made Alex sick. Of course, she couldn't tell if Lillian was bluffing. But seeing as Maggie had just been swallowed by whatever those stairs lead to, she knew she couldn't risk it. She tapped her earpiece. "Fall back. Cancel the strike. Do not engage."

"The next time you'll try to break into this garage, it'll be empty, agent Danvers. CADMUS is everywhere."

Alex turned around at the sound of the garage door opening behind her, and realized that Lillian wanted her to leave. She actually gave her a chance to walk out.

She turned around again, but the Luthor had vanished in thin air, and was nowhere to be seen.

She knew that the DEO agents were probably just waiting on the corner, but she felt her blood boil at the thought that Lillian now had Maggie _and_ Kara, and Alex had no idea how to find either of them without risking their lives.

* * *

_Phoenix._

It was the only lead they had.

Alex had been going through the database for at least ten minutes trying desperately to find a match to the name. But the only mission named Phoenix was a covert op that she herself hadn't participated in, about two years before she even got to the DEO. And those mission reports were censored so badly, even _she_ couldn't understand fully what they were about.

She leaned back with a grunt, before hearing hasty footsteps behind her, and spinning around in her chair. She couldn't have been more relieved to see him – not that she'd ever confess it.

"Winn." She got up from the chair. "You have to help me. I can't manoeuver this database."

"So I've heard." He smirked, sinking down in the chair she'd vacated. "Talk to me."

"Phoenix." Alex said. "It's something Maggie said. A clue, or a code… I don't know what it means. I can't find anything in the DEO database."

Winn cracked his knuckles, and got to work. He cross-referenced, scoured different databases, and was pretty sure he even hacked into a secure government server at one point.

Alex was looking over his shoulder nervously, fretting, and trying not to think about all the things Lillian Luthor could be doing to Kara and Maggie while they were wasting time.

Finally, a pop-up appeared. And Winn let out a quiet "Hmm…"

"What? What is it?!" Alex said, trying to read off the screen.

"Apparently, 'Phoenix' is the codename for a group of assassins that appeared on the DEO's radar a few years ago. They… Killed a load of aliens… The report isn't all that clear, but the death count was a bit over fifty."

Alex sighed, and closed her eyes. What was Maggie trying to achieve with leading her to that?!

"Oh, okay! It says that the DEO was hunting them down, trying to find them. There were four of them, but according to this, two have already died. Suicide, apparently. They were cornered by the DEO, and decided to inject themselves with poison."

"Do you have any names?" Alex whispered, feeling the dread settle inside her at the familiar sound of that. Winn typed away at the keyboard.

"Okay, uh… I found the names of the two dead ones. Hunter Macintosh and Dylan Roland."

The photos of the two appeared.

Alex tried not to memorize their faces, before clearing her throat. "Keep looking."

Winn started typing again, and Alex closed her eyes, biting at her nails, a part of her hoping that whatever she was theorizing in her head wasn't the truth…

"Holy _shit_ …" She heard Winn curse, as she turned around again.

To see Maggie's photo on the monitor.

Winn seemed in a complete shock, but Alex had seen it coming. "I had a feeling. But I need to know who the fourth one is, Winn. They might be the only person that can help us save Maggie."

Winn's mouth was still ajar, but he took a deep breath, and continued his search.

Within seconds, he found the fourth match.

A photo appeared on screen. And suddenly, it all made sense.

The fourth assassin. The fourth mind-controlled CADMUS drone.

_Taylor Lewis._


	9. Chapter 9

When Maggie finally found herself in control of her body again, she was standing in a long, dark corridor. On the end, she could see a dim, flickering light.

Carefully, she made her way through the hallway, until she could see that the light was actually coming from a few lit candles, inside what she could only describe as a grotesquely imitated Tudor-style dining room, complete with a fireplace, bookshelves, and a rug on the floor.

In the center of the room stood a big dining table with two chairs. And on the far end of the room, sat Lillian Luthor.

The woman smiled as Maggie stepped inside, getting up. "Maggie, dear. I've been waiting for you. Please, sit down. Dinner is almost ready."

Maggie hesitated, but slowly did as she was told, taking a seat at the other side of the long table. "Where are we?"

"Facility Delta Omega." Lillian said. "This used to be your home."

"CADMUS was _never_ my home." Maggie replied, putting her elbows on the table and looking at the woman. "No matter the things I did."

"Do you love agent Danvers, Maggie?"

Maggie frowned at the question, but kept her mouth shut.

She'd die before giving Lillian anything she could use against her. But the older woman didn't seem to mind much, her smile never faltering. "Why did you never tell agent Danvers about our special memories, Maggie? I think you broke her heart."

The detective smiled weakly, shaking her head. "Your stupid mind games are not going to work on me. Not anymore."

Instead of a response, Lillian clapped in her hands once. The door next to them opened, and Maggie watched as a figure was shoved inside, tumbling to the ground. Their hands were shackled, the metal oozing a green glow.

Kara.

"Oh, look who decided to join in on the fun!"

Maggie's eyes snapped up to the smirking blonde woman. "Let her go."

The woman tilted her head. "And why should I do that, after I fought so hard to get her here?"

"She wasn't on the list." Maggie spat, getting up. "Anyone not on the list was off limits, those were the rules!"

"The rules have _changed_ , Maggie. Sit down." Luthor responded calmly. Before Maggie could stop herself, she took her seat again.

"So you do remember the list." The woman seemed fascinated, looking at Maggie. "What else do you remember?!"

"We were innocent, Lillian. You took that away from us." Maggie pointed a finger at her. "You brainwashed us into thinking they were bad. And what for?! What did they do to you?!"

"The names on that list were all off-worlders that decided to come to our planet to commit crimes and take advantage of the human race. Much like our mutual friend here…" She gazed down to where Kara was moaning and writhing on the floor, "…You were fighting the bad guys. That makes you a hero."

"I am no _fucking_ hero for being a killer." Maggie shook her head. "Don't call me that."

"Semantics aside, Maggie." Lillian's smirk was gone. She was now absolute business. "There have been new developments. The list has been expanded."

Maggie laughed. "If you think for one second that I'm actually going to join you voluntarily, you're absolutely insane."

"You're right. Obviously, this… _new you_ is working out so much better for the DEO and the NCPD. But I do think you'd like to hear my proposal."

Maggie leaned back. "Try me."

"You'll go back to work on the list. By yourself, this time. Eliminate the threats, one by one. And if you make it through, I give you my word that no harm will come to you, agent Danvers, or anybody you care about, ever again. Your debt to me will be paid."

"And if I don't?!"

Lillian sighed. "Then I'll be forced to reactivate you. And I'll be sure that the first thing programmed into your brain is to make Alex Danvers suffer. You were so close to choking her last time, I'd hate to see history repeat itself."

"Who's to say that you won't reactivate me the second I say 'yes'?" Maggie narrowed her eyes. She didn't like the deal one bit.

"I suppose that's for me to know, and for you to find out, Maggie. But I need you in the field. You were invaluable for our cause. And if all you really need is a _reason_ , I'd be happy to provide one for every single target."

Maggie looked away. She _had_ to, didn't she? It was the only way to try and keep Alex safe, to try and get back to the way things were. She had to understand.

But that left one big hole in the plan.

"What about her?" Maggie glanced sideways to where Kara was still breathing heavily on the ground. Lillian followed her gaze for one second, before turning back to her. "She'll be your motivation. Work hard, and Alex gets her little sister back. Fail, and you'll get to explain how painfully she was killed all because you couldn't get the job done."

Maggie swallowed the bile that rose up in her throat at the mental picture that gave her. "Okay. Fine. How many names on the list?"

"Twelve." Lillian smirked again. "You'll start right now." She reached into her pocket, and got out an envelope, sliding it across the table in Maggie's direction. The detective grabbed it, and pulled out a dossier, with the first name.

 _Taylor Lewis_.

Her head shot up. "Lewis?!"

"She's a loose end." Lillian said. "And I don't like loose ends. Get rid of her. This will be your test. You have 4 hours per name. Don't make me wait."

Maggie nodded slowly, getting up and trying not to look at Kara. She had to focus. She had to be whatever Lillian wanted her to be, to get back to Alex and make everything alright again.

"Where is my gear?"

"I had it brought up to your room. Someone will show you the way. Oh, and Maggie?"

She turned around again to face Lillian, who was smiling up at her. "If I see you near agent Danvers, you better act the part. Because if I'm not satisfied with your performance, her sister will know."

After that, Maggie was on her way.

* * *

"Lewis?!" Alex was knocking on the door to her apartment like a madman, but she couldn't care less. She didn't have the time or patience for asking politely.

Seconds later, the door opened, and Alex vaguely recognized the woman from photos from the investigation of the NCPD mole. It had to be her.

"Who the hell are you, and why are you breaking my door down in the middle of the night?!"

"I need to talk to you. It's an emergency."

"What kind of emergency?" Taylor shot back. Alex grunted, really not in the mood for circling around each other. "I'm Maggie's girlfriend. I need your help."

That seemed to do the trick, as Taylor looked around the hallway, and pulled Alex inside of her apartment, locking the door behind her.

" _Babe_?" Alex looked up, and saw a sleepy, barely dressed blonde woman rub at her eyes. She recognized her as the barista Kara had introduced her to. Ciara.

Taylor looked up. "It's alright, it's just work. Go back to sleep, babe."

"You sure…?" Ciara didn't seem convinced.

"Yeah."

The blonde nodded, and turned back around, disappearing into what Alex assumed was the bedroom.

Taylor looked at her. "You know they fired me, right? How could I possibly help you?"

Alex stepped closer, and lowered her voice. "I know about project Phoenix."

She expected Taylor to shush her, to look around in panic trying to find imaginary cameras or microphones, maybe even to punch her or attack her.

What she didn't expect was the look of confusion. "Project what?"

"Project _Phoenix._ " Alex hissed again. "I know that you used to work for CADMUS."

"What the hell is CADMUS?" Taylor frowned. "Seriously, if you think this is funny…"

"I don't-…!" Alex shook her head. "You and Maggie, both. Together, at CADMUS."

"Look, I don't know if you see this, but I have a girlfriend. And me and Mags had some crazy times at the academy, but I would never sleep with her. So I don't know what you want from me."

Alex grunted in frustration, trying to keep a level head, when she realized with a jolt what was happening.

It wasn't Lewis being a bitch, or trying to deny her ever participating.

It was genuine ignorance.

Lewis didn't know in the slightest way what the hell Alex was talking about.

And Alex knew that it had to have been CADMUS. They must have wiped her memories. Only they did a thorough job with her, and the same couldn't be said for Maggie.

So Alex got up, clearing her throat. "Um… Sorry. For bothering you. It won't happen again."

"Maggie told me about you."

Alex looked at her. "What did she tell you?"

"She told me she loved you. That you were the first person to ever break down her walls like that." Lewis winced. "Don't tell her I told you that. She'll rip me a new one."

"I won't." Alex whispered back, before slipping out of the apartment, leaving a dumbfounded Taylor Lewis behind.

She didn't hear Ciara come back into the room. "Who was that, Tay? What's going on?"

"Hey, I thought you went back to bed?" Taylor sighed. Ciara shrugged. "I didn't feel like it… What happened?"

"Just-…" Before Taylor could continue, she heard the glass window behind her break. Ciara screamed as she watched her girlfriend dive to the floor, just in time for a black-wearing figure to jump into the apartment.

Taylor crawled away, but froze when she saw the figure standing in front of her. "W-who are you?! What are you doing?!"

Instead of replying, the figure reached into their pocket, grabbed a small remote, and pressed a button.

Instantaneously, Taylor went limp and sank to the floor.

The figure looked up at Ciara's primal scream, and walked over to her, covering her mouth with a hand, and raising her arm to wrap around the blonde's neck.

She fought, for a few more seconds, until she herself dropped to the floor too.

Moving over to Lewis, she wasted no time in reaching into her other pocket and taking out a small syringe, inserting its contents into a vein in her lower arm, and keeping the needle stuck halfway in.

When she was satisfied that both women were dead, she jumped back into the window frame, taking one last glance at the scene.

"I'm sorry, Taylor." Maggie sighed. "I wish it could have been different."

After that, she left.


	10. Chapter 10

Not only was Alex unable to get anything out of Taylor Lewis that was remotely related to CADMUS or project Phoenix, but it had set the DEO a few steps back in the game.

Seeing as how she was currently bent over her and her girlfriend's dead body.

She'd been quick when she heard what happened, intercepting the NCPD and convincing them that the crime scene was under her jurisdiction because of its connections to their mission. Within a few minutes, the DEO had set up camp at the Lewis apartment, checking the entire block for clues.

Behind her, she heard a _whoosh_ coming from the window, and for a second she expected it to be Kara. She tried not to look too disappointed at J'onn, who had just arrived at the scene. It was a little over nine in the morning, and Alex had to look as tired as she felt because her boss was shooting her a concerned look, that she dismissed quickly.

"Is it Lewis?" J'onn asked, looking around the apartment. Alex nodded, crouching down and using her latex-clad hand to turn the woman's face towards them. "It is. I was talking to them earlier."

She looked up at him. "I must've been the last person to see them alive."

J'onn walked through the room, looking at the two bodies and stopping at Ciara. "I don't see any wounds."

"She was choked." Alex nodded. "Lewis, however…"

J'onn noticed the needle stuck in her arm. "Did she do that to herself?"

Alex edged closer and studied it. "There's some residue left in the syringe…" She winced as she carefully pulled it out, examining the liquid on the bottom. "It looks like some sort of poison…"

"Why would somebody poison her?" J'onn asked.

Alex realized it was too big of a coincidence. It _had_ to be. "The other two members of Phoenix injected poison into themselves when the DEO was on their tail… Maybe she did the same? Maybe she choked her own girlfriend and injected herself when she realized that I was onto her?"

J'onn hummed. "Well, we can't be sure. And _if_ it was CADMUS, I doubt they'd leave any trace of them behind that they didn't want us to find."

"I'll analyze the content of that syringe, but it'll probably be a dead end." Alex sighed. "We have nothing now. The last person that could help us is dead."

"Maybe… But she can still help."

Alex opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant, when J'onn leaned down and held Taylor Lewis' head, twisting it around and touching it. "There's a scar here, CADMUS had to have injected some sort of chip into her brain to control her."

"Good thinking." Alex agreed, getting up from the ground.

Before J'onn could continue, Alex was already out the door with the syringe, turning to one of the DEO agents outside. "Get Lewis' body to the DEO lab. We need to remove her brain chip."

The agent nodded and walked into the room, as Alex clutched the syringe, and walked away. She knew that CADMUS probably wanted her to find the chip. But it was the only lead they had. She _had_ to play along with the game, that much she knew.

* * *

"You did well." Lillian said, as soon as she saw Maggie enter the dining room again. The detective sighed, and put her gloves down.

"Did anybody see you?"

"Nobody sees me." Maggie answered immediately. "That's why I'm so _good_ at it."

It was sarcasm, but she wasn't surprised to see Lillian agree. "Indeed you are. Well, now that _that_ 's out of the way, you're the only one of my Phoenixes left."

"Hooray."

"Now I know I can trust you, so you get a reward. I know all the drama with you and agent Danvers has been entertaining, but I think it's time to put a stop to it. We wouldn't want the DEO to keep too close to our business, so I think we can kill two birds with one stone."

"Y-you want me to kill Alex?!" Maggie's heart sank.

Lillian laughed. "Oh, dear God, _no_. I'm not that heartless. Alex Danvers has done nothing more than mildly inconvenience some of my actions. She's not a threat to our cause."

"So, what do you want?"

"Your next target." Lillian gave her another envelope. Maggie opened it. She didn't recognize the name, but she vaguely remembered seeing the alien at the dive bar every now and then. She looked up at Lillian. "I don't get it."

"I'll send out a message to the DEO that gives them the location. They'll be there, led by agent Danvers undoubtedly. You'll be there. And you'll get a chance to explain everything about your mission. She'll understand, and she'll back off."

"Why would she, if she knows that I'm killing aliens?!"

"Because I still have something of hers." Lillian smiled. "And I still have you. So… I know that it'll be emotional, so we need to establish some ground rules."

Maggie leaned back, not liking where it was going.

"Whatever you do, you kill the target first. Talk then, whatever you need. If I see you doing something I don't like, I'll reactivate you, and kill her. And finally, you come back to me. Because if you don't return within your timeframe with a confirmed kill, I'll reactivate you anyway."

Maggie sighed, but shrugged. "Fine. Okay."

"You have one hour to prepare. Go get some rest."

Maggie turned around, ready to leave, but hesitated to ask one more question. "I can tell Alex the truth?"

Lillian smirked. "The whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I can't imagine what she'll do if you lie to her one more time. You and I both know that the truth will hurt her more than anything you could ever make up."

The smaller woman nodded slowly, before walking out of the room, leaving a pleased Lillian Luthor behind. She took another sip of her glass, and headed to her control room.

* * *

" _Ladies and gentlemen of the DEO. Nobody is safe. We will continue to perform our duty to wipe this world from evil aliens that threaten our way of life. You will not stop us, you will not contain us. We will strike down upon what aliens call home, and we will show no mercy to those who betray us. We are the protectors of the human race. We are CADMUS."_

Alex's throat went dry, as she was transfixed by the moving image on the screen. Next to her, Winn and J'onn also seemed to snap out of their trances, and looked around. "So…"

J'onn grunted. "They want us to stay out of their way."

"If we do that, more aliens will die." Alex shook her head. "We can't."

"'Perform our duty', that's what they said, right?" Winn frowned. "Maybe they're referring to the Taylor Lewis murder? That she had to be destroyed because she was evil?"

"Of course she was evil, she stopped working for _them_." Alex scoffed.

"CADMUS wants to hurt aliens where they think they're home." J'onn seemed lost in thought. "Maybe…"

"… The bar." Alex's eyes widened. "They're warning us that they'll strike next at the alien bar. That's where aliens go to be themselves, it's a safe haven."

"I'll assemble the troops." J'onn said. "We need to stay low."

Winn raced back to his monitors, while Alex ran out of the command center and towards her bike. She would kill every CADMUS goon that stood between her and getting her two girls back. She knew it.

She wouldn't hesitate.

* * *

When Alex arrived at the bar, she plugged in her earpiece. "Winn, can you hear me?"

" _Loud and clear_. _J'onn and the strike team are moving out, but they don't want to spook CADMUS yet. You'll have to go in and scout."_

"Copy that." Alex said, moving inside. Usually, the bar felt like a safe place for her too. It was where she'd gotten to know Maggie. Where they shared their first kiss, albeit an awkward one. Where they'd made so many memories…

She ordered a drink, and took a seat at a booth, scanning through the crowd. A few aliens were playing poker. Two were flirting at the bar. One was sitting by himself at a table.

Alex didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She actually recognized most of the present aliens as regular patrons of the bar. Of course, it was early, so she hadn't expected the place to be packed.

The door opened, and another familiar face walked in. She vaguely remembered him as a guy who hung out at the bar sometimes. Always dressed in a suit, he was probably a banker or something. He came out to drink after work, but Alex had never seen him there during the day.

She watched him walk over to the bartender and ask her something. When the woman shook her head with a frown, Alex got a weird feeling. The alien copied her frown and replied, but when the bartender shook her head for a second time, he stepped back.

Another figure entered, face and head covered by the hood of their sweater. It wasn't something unusual; most people new to the bar wanted to cover up their alien markings or face to not be scrutinized for being who they were in public.

The figure walked over to the suited alien, patted him on the back and whispered something to him. He turned around, and laughed with a grateful nod, as the hooded figure slipped him something. He stared at what they'd put in the palm of his hand, nodded, and walked out.

Alex watched intensely, seeing the hooded figure look around, and finally settle on her. It was too dark in the bar to see their face, but as they approached Alex, the agent reached for the weapon in her holster.

"Don't. Not here." The figure whispered. And Alex recognized the voice immediately. "Maggie?!"

Maggie took off the hood, and slipped into the booth, leaning against the wall so she couldn't be seen by the rest of the bar. Only Alex, who was dumbfounded to be right next to her, apparently, because she didn't say anything.

"Alex, there isn't a lot of time. I need to talk to you."

"What did you do to him?!"

Maggie craned her head to see that Alex was looking at the door, before turning back to her girlfriend. "I poisoned him."

"Why?!" Alex's face was nothing but pure horror and disgust. It broke Maggie's heart. " _You_ … It was you, you killed Lewis."

"I had to. Alex, listen. Lillian is using me as a Phoenix again. She wants me to get rid of 12 names, and then we'll finally be free."

"Free, what do you mean, free?!" Alex shot back. "Do you think for one second she'll actually let you go?!"

"She has Kara, Alex. I have to do it. If I refuse her, she'll reactivate my implant and she'll let me kill you like I tried last week." Maggie put her hand on the table, and Alex reached for it immediately. Needing to feel Maggie, to know that she was okay.

"I'm me, Alex. She isn't controlling me. But you have to let me do this. Stay out of my way, let me finish that list. 12 names, 2 down already."

"You can't expect me to let you get away with this. We're a government agency, we can't let those murders just happen."

"I'll leave you marks, okay? You'll know it's me, but you have to back off. If you don't, Lillian's going to know."

"So, you two are best friends now?" She honestly hadn't meant for it to come out like that. But Alex was too confused and hurt to think rationally. Maggie was a killer again. She was innocent, and she had nothing to do with CADMUS, yet she was killing in their name. Again.

"I… I have to go." Maggie got up. "I can't come home for another day. I have to eliminate them all by tomorrow evening. And if I do that, Lillian said she'll deactivate the implant and never ask for me, or bother us again."

Alex shook her head. She couldn't believe Maggie was so naïve as to believe whatever came out of Lillian Luthor's mouth. But the thought that at least she was safe and being actively protected by CADMUS reassured her slightly.

Maggie leaned forward, and captured Alex's lips in a quick kiss. "We'll be back here playing pool in no time."

She put on her hood again and turned around, heading for the exit.

But before she could, she was met with a big explosion throwing her backwards, and several other grenades being thrown into the room.

Alex dove onto the ground, trying to get away from the _bangs_ all around the room.

_So much for not wanting to spook CADMUS. What happened to being stealthy?!_

She crawled on all fours, but the ringing in her ears disoriented her greatly. She tried to remember wherever Maggie had been, but got distracted by several DEO agents pouring into the room, all yelling. The alien patrons and the bartender hit the deck quickly at the sight of the guns in their hands.

But Alex could only see Maggie, kneeling down in the center of the room.

See Maggie lower her hands, and reach for something on her back.

See Maggie reach for the _gun_ tucked in the back of her pants.

And see Maggie pull out the gun, and raise it.

Instinctively, Alex reached for her own gun.

And then, all hell broke loose.


	11. Chapter 11

Alex instinctively ducked behind the booth next to her, as she heard gunfire erupt. She pulled her head up for one second to see that Maggie was actually behind cover, facing Alex, her gun raised in her hands. And even though Alex knew that this wasn't Maggie's first time taking fire, she could still see the detective's hands shaking.

She took a deep breath, and yelled out. "Stand down!"

But her voice barely traveled through the chaos and shouting in the bar. She maintained eye-contact with Maggie, as she crawled out from the booth. She saw Maggie's eyes widen, shaking her head, begging Alex to not get in the line of fire. But the agent raised her hands, and got up. "Stand down! That's an order! There's no threat!"

Immediately, the gunfire ceased, as the rest of the agents repeated her other to each other. Alex sighed in relief. Maggie stayed back, ducked behind the cover, and didn't make a move to join her, as Alex addressed her team. "You need to _talk_ to me! You can't come in here, guns blazing, that wasn't the plan!"

"Ma'am…" One of the agents looked at her. "There was an alien outside, he had some sort of seizure and collapsed, we thought there was an active threat."

"And that somehow justifies a fucking _blitzkrieg_ into this bar?! Innocent civilians could have gotten hurt! This is on you." She poked him in the chest. "Dismissed. Report back to the DEO. I'll handle it here."

The other agent looked absolutely pissed, but Alex couldn't care less. She needed them out, Maggie could have gotten hurt. Hell, _she_ could have walked into several bullets because of their carelessness. And that mattered more than his protocols. She knew she'd have a ticked off J'onn to deal with once she got back, but she had other business to attend to.

"Maggie…" She whispered, turning around to the cover she'd been hiding behind. But the spot was deserted. Alex looked around, but couldn't see anything. She still had so many questions for Maggie. But the only thing she could do now was hope that Maggie would be alright, and try to cover for her.

Something that clashed directly with all of the morals and ideals that came with doing her job at the DEO.

So she had to choose.

Disappointed, and getting ready to get yelled at, Alex took off into the direction of the DEO headquarters, praying that the nightmare would be over soon.

* * *

"Confirmed kill." Maggie entered the dining room, seeing a filled plate at the empty chair. She took a seat, and stared at the pile of food.

Lillian, on the opposite chair, sighed. "I couldn't help but notice you got some attention from our friends at the DEO?"

Maggie motioned to herself. "Not a scratch. Alex will take care of the rest."

"Excellent." Lillian smiled. "Now, for your second reward. It's almost like Christmas, isn't it?"

Maggie raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond. She didn't need to, as Lillian continued effortlessly. "We had a bit of an… _incident_ earlier with our dearly beloved Supergirl." She faked a sad sigh. "She was able to break out of her constraints during some tests, as the kryptonite we'd used was low grade… All an experiment, of course. Anyway, we punished her for her disobedience."

Maggie didn't like where it was going.

"… You get to go spend some time with your near sister-in-law. Isn't that right? Weren't you going to marry Alex Danvers?"

Maggie shook her head in contempt, but looked at Lillian. "What do you mean, 'spend some time with her'?"

"You get to clean her up. Keep the 'relationship strong'. She'll be grateful to you, think you're still on her side."

"I _am_ still on her side, Lillian. Just those twelve, then I walk." Maggie tried to remind her.

"I'll personally make sure that the implant is out of your brain." Lillian smiled. "Now, come on, you haven't touched your food!" The woman looked up at her. "I need you strong and fierce for your next name. But that's all for the future. Right now, you have a superhero to take care of."

Maggie nodded slowly and reached for her fork. Truth be told, she was starving. Not that she'd ever give Lillian the satisfaction of knowing it.

"We went to your apartment, Maggie. A few days ago." Lillian looked up at her. "We found… _It_."

"'It'? What are you talking about?"

Lillian smirked, and reached into her pocket, putting a small box on the table. Maggie's eyes widened as she stared at it. "Wasn't this something of yours?"

"You fucking _took_ it?" Maggie gritted her teeth, trying to keep her anger at bay. "Why?!"

"To remind you, Maggie. Of all you that could have if you just _participate_." Lillian threw the box at her, and she caught it easily. She opened it, and much to her relief, _the ring_ was still inside.

"Keep it." Lillian said. "Show it to her sister. Make sure she knows not to try any funny business."

Maggie clutched the box in her hand, and took off. She stopped at her own room, seeing a first aid kit on her bed. With a sigh, she grabbed it, and walked to where she remembered the prison cells were, and found one with two guards at the door.

When they saw her, they stepped back. Lillian must've told them she was coming.

She opened the door, and her heart skipped a beat.

Kara was in the corner, curled up in a ball. Maggie could see blood on her hands, on the green-glowing wall, on the ground in front of her… They must have done a number on her. When she heard the sound of the door opening, she crawled back even further. It broke Maggie's heart.

"Hey…" She whispered, kneeling down in front of Kara and putting the kit down. "Kara…"

The blonde lifted her head slightly, and looked up to see that it was Maggie staring at her. Her eyes immediately filled with tears again. " _Maggie_ … It's you…"

"What did they do to you…" Maggie frowned. It had been a rhetorical question, but she gently put her hand underneath Kara's chin to make her look up. Her face was bashed in, marred with bruises and blood.

"T-they just wouldn't _stop_ …" Kara whimpered. Maggie nodded, and reached into the first aid kit, doing the best she could with what she had. It stayed silent for a while as Maggie treated Kara's wounds, broken only to ask for permission when moving to another spot.

"Maggie…" Kara started weakly, interrupting the detective pulling shards of kryptonite out of her leg with forceps. She didn't _want_ to think about how that got there. But she looked up to meet her eyes. "Yeah?"

"Why does Lillian like you so much?" She took a shaky breath, wincing at the pain shooting through her body. Maggie frowned, and stopped her actions. "What do you mean?"

"She… She called you a _hero_." Kara coughed. "S-she admires you."

"If she does, it's only because I've been doing her dirty work for her." Maggie sighed, and leaned against the wall. Kara dropped down weakly, her head landing in Maggie's lap. The detective hadn't seen the action coming, but welcomed it nonetheless, as she carefully started running a hand through Kara's hair. She knew how much Alex loved it when she did that, so she hoped Kara would too.

"I admire you." Kara whispered. Maggie looked down. "Why?"

"Because of the way you fixed yourself." Kara said. "Because of how you changed when you knew that you weren't doing the right thing. How you protect what you had to hate in the past."

Kara tilted her head to look Maggie in the eyes from down in her lap. "I don't blame you, Maggie. I never have."

That brought tears to Maggie's eyes, as she dismissed them quickly with the back of her free hand, the other still threading through Kara's hair. She remembered Lillian's earlier words, and reached into her back pocket to take out the box. Upon seeing it, Kara's eyes widened. "I-Is that…"

"I was going to ask her this weekend." Maggie smiled weakly, now unable to stop the tears slipping down her cheeks. "I had a reservation for our favorite restaurant, we'd go out and come back to mine after, and then I'd ask her."

Maggie bit her lip, opening the box and showing Kara the ring. "Do you think… She would have liked it?"

"'Would have'?" Kara frowned, picking up on Maggie's sad look.

The woman clicked the box shut again, and held it to her chest. "I saw her, Kara. She lied to the DEO for me. She's going to have to choose between her job and protecting me, and we both know I'm not worth that."

"You _are_ worth that." Kara shook her head. "You're her world, Maggie."

Maggie got up, gently lowering Kara's head to the ground, and throwing the box into the opposite corner of the cell. "Not anymore."

"Are you leaving?!" Kara said as Maggie walked back towards the door, turning around one last time to face her. "I don't think they'll let me see you again, Kara. But if I don't, and something happens… I'm sorry for screwing it all up."

Kara opened her mouth to argue against that, but Maggie was already out the door.


	12. Chapter 12

"All she needs is more time!" Alex protested, folding her arms.

As expected, she was currently in the middle of a heated debate with J'onn, who'd pulled her into a private meeting room the second she set foot in the command center. He didn't look pleased in the slightest about how the mission had gone.

"More time to kidnap or kill innocent aliens!"

" _Are they_?!" Alex shot back. "The one she poisoned had to feed on human flesh to survive, he'd probably killed over ten humans since he came to National City, hell, he should have been on _our_ radar but he wasn't!"

"You do not get to justify the massacre of aliens that is about to happen, Alex." J'onn shook his head. "Not like that. It's not up to us to decide who gets to die by the hands of CADMUS."

"J'onn." Alex looked him in the eyes. "We can't compromise Maggie."

"We won't. But there are a lot of other ways to get her out of CADMUS' grasp without standing by and watching her murder."

"Yeah?" Alex frowned. "Which ones include getting to her before Lillian Luthor realizes that she's not where she's supposed to be, and blows up the implant in her head?!"

She shook her head. "I'm not doing this, J'onn. I'm not taking risks with her."

"Supergirl is compromised." J'onn grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to _shake_ the sense into her. "CADMUS has her. If we don't do something, they're going to kill her, Alex. We have to move. We know where the base is, we know what Maggie is doing. We're going to intercept her on her way to a hit. Ambush her, neutralize her. Lillian seems to like her, since she's had the others killed. If we can use it against her, maybe we can bargain for Kara."

Alex shook her head, feeling nauseous at the thought. "That's a _big_ risk, J'onn…"

"Good thing you're not taking it, then."

"What do you mean?!"

"I'm taking you off, Alex." He looked at her sternly. "You're clearly too involved in this mission. And I know what you're going to say. You need to be there, you want to get Lillian. But you're acting emotionally, you're making mistakes of judgment."

Alex saw red. She got up from her spot leaning against the wall, and walked over to him, getting up in his face. " _What_ are you saying now?"

J'onn didn't hesitate in replying. "I know I can't stop you from doing anything. But you're not jeopardizing agent lives again. I can't let you. So I'm taking you off this mission. If you were smart, you'd let us handle it and back off."

Alex smirked angrily. "If smart means getting Kara and Maggie killed, yeah. Guess I'm dumber than I thought. And if you're not going to help me, I'll do it alone."

J'onn shook his head as he watched Alex take off, wondering whether he'd made the right decision.

* * *

Maggie stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. The cold, dark concrete of the walls around her made her feel trapped, but she knew that there was nothing she could do. She _had_ to keep going. For Kara. For Alex.

She'd crossed three more off the list. Alien traffickers that walked into the trap she'd set, and were met with a face full of poison. But she made sure that she left an 'M' somewhere in the dirt beneath their bodies so Alex would know.

Alex…

She couldn't let herself get distracted now. She needed to do her job. If any of those aliens on the list got the word that she was coming, they could set a trap for her as well. She needed to stay focused.

A loud, blaring sound shot her out of her thoughts, as she jumped up. It sounded like an alarm going off at the facility. Instinctively, she reached for her gun and gear, and sprinted out of the room.

Her first thought was to head to the prisoner cells, to keep Kara safe. So she ran through corridors and hallways, pushing out of the way of CADMUS scientists and guards that were running in different directions.

As she passed two of them, she heard a snippet of their conversation.

"… a _breach,_ but we've been keeping her contained with kryptonite-!"

"She broke out! We need to get the darts!"

Maggie's face broke into a smirk as she realized what had happened.

 _Kara had found the ring_.

The ring, that she'd brought to her cell, not only to prove a point. But the ring that had a crystal Alex had developed, that mimicked the power of the sun on a smaller scale. Not enough to recover from solar flaring, but enough to help Kara beat low-grade kryptonite.

She'd hoped Lillian would have found the ring, and she would have worked it out from there, but bringing it to the facility had been beyond Maggie's expectations. And now, maybe, Kara would finally be safe.

When she turned the corner of Kara's prison cell, she saw that the blonde was standing in the middle of the hallway, trying to fight off the scientists that were trying to hold her down. She snapped her head up when she saw her. "Maggie!"

"Kara, _go_!"

The heroine looked at her with a frown. "Help me!"

"I can't! There are cameras, Lillian is going to know, just get out!"

Kara seemed to be torn between staying to help Maggie and getting out, but the look on the detective's face didn't leave much room for discussion. With a final devastating blow to one of the scientists' head, the others ran off in fear.

"Get back to Alex. Tell her to stay put, Lillian's going to punish me for helping you escape, so don't make her try anything to stop me!"

Kara ran forward, and enveloped Maggie in a hug, which she reciprocated gladly. "Be safe, okay?"

"Always am, Danvers." Maggie smiled, as Kara stepped back, and took off, breaking a hole in the ceiling through pure adrenalin. Maggie jumped back at the debris falling down, but the only thing on her mind was that _Kara was safe_.

And that was all that mattered.

She tucked her gun away, and walked back to her bedroom, unsurprised to find two guards at the door. When they saw her, they grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her into another, empty room.

And when they reached for their batons, Maggie knew Lillian was livid.

* * *

The only thing currently keeping Alex from bursting into tears or punching a hole through her own wall was Maggie's sweater in her arms. It smelled like her, like all the memories they'd made together.

Truth be told, Alex understood why J'onn did what he did. He had to. If she were director of the DEO, she'd have done the exact same thing. But that didn't mean she was going to let whatever plan he was going to execute work.

She took another breath, and was filled with _Maggie_ again. Beautiful, sweet, badass Maggie. How did she get so lucky to deserve somebody like her. The lies she'd told Alex barely stung now. Maggie hadn't lied for herself, to save face, or to cover up a part of her. Maggie had lied out of necessity. And Alex understood.

Behind her, the window to her apartment creaked. Alex scoffed to herself. It sounded so much like Kara. That's the exact noise the window made whenever Kara entered her apartment.

" _Alex_ …"

The agent's eyes widened as the turned around, and her heart stopped when she saw the scene in front of her.

Kara, leaning heavily against the window, her eyes barely open.

Alex put the sweater down and ran towards the window, helping Kara stumble into the room. "Kara, what… I don't…"

She put her down on the couch, as Kara groaned. "Maggie… She helped me escape. She… slipped me one of your yellow sun crystals."

Alex frowned. Where could Maggie have possibly taken that? And where would she have hidden it?! But none of that mattered now.

"Do you know where she is? Is she safe?" Alex tucked a loose lock of hair behind Kara's ear as she looked at her with a gaze full of concern for both of them.

Kara winced. "I don't know… She said they were going to punish her for letting me get away… She told me to tell you to stay out of her way because CADMUS was going to one-up their game."

" _Shit_ …" Alex looked away, before realizing that she'd been ignoring the problem in front of her. "Come on… We need to get you under the lamps."

"I'm fine…" Kara shook her head. "Just a little dizzy, long exposure."

"Do you know anything about the list?" Alex pried, holding her sister's hand. "Who is next, what is happening?"

"No… I don't know anything about that." Kara shook her head. "They just experimented on me. I never heard anything."

Alex's heart broke. She'd been so intent on finding Maggie and preventing the alien murders that she hadn't even considered the fact that her sister was being tortured.

"You need to rest." Alex said, bringing up her 'I'm-a-doctor-and-I'm-your-big-sister'- mode, which left no room for argument. Kara was too weak to care, as she rested her head on the couch, and was close to drifting off. Alex continued to stroke Kara's hair, a gesture that felt familiar to her time at CADMUS. So with her last strength, Kara looked up at Alex.

"She was going… to ask you to marry her."

* * *

After the fourteenth hit, Maggie lost track of them.

They kept on beating her with their batons, not enough to kill her, but enough to cause serious pain, and probably break a few bones. It didn't help that they were hitting the same spots over and over again. But Maggie knew she had to take it. If she fought them, she'd die. That much was sure.

The clicking of heels behind her, she recognized all too well. An arrogant strut. Maggie could basically _feel_ the smirk on the woman's face.

"Did you learn your lesson, little Phoenix?"

The guards pulled Maggie up so that she was in a sitting position against the wall. From there, she could see Lillian's smile. Though, she did notice a slight disappointment in the eyes as well. Maybe Lillian liked her more than she thought.

"Yes…" Maggie whispered, wincing at the sound echoing through her skull and giving her a headache.

"Good. Because now that you've let Supergirl go, the rules have changed again."

She held Maggie's chin in her right hand to pull her eyes towards her face. "The seven remaining names on the list. We can't afford to lose any more time, because now the DEO will be on our tails again, and I'll probably have to give up this facility too. So here's what we're going to do-…"

"You knew that Supergirl was going to break out of here eventually." Maggie spat at her. The reply was both guards pulling her down, and shoving their batons into her chest and face. She recoiled.

Lillian sighed. "Please don't interrupt, it's incredibly impolite, Maggie. Well, as I was saying, I've organized a big party tonight. Socialites, politicians, every important person in National City is attending. The seven remaining names will be there. You have one evening to get rid of all of them."

Maggie looked at her, realizing that Lillian Luthor was bluffing, as always. She'd been bluffing since the moment Maggie had walked into the facility. She was _never_ going to deactivate the implant if she got rid of that list. And truth be told, Maggie didn't know what part of her actually believed, and continued to believe that Lillian liked her enough to keep to her word.

So she vowed to herself that if she was going to die tonight, she'd die fighting.

And take Lillian Luthor down to hell with her.

"Fine." She said, looking the woman in the eyes and hoping that the next time those eyes stared back at her, she'd be driving a bullet through them. "You have a deal."


	13. Chapter 13

Lillian Luthor was a lot of things.

A bitch, the devil incarnated, a horrible mother, a corrupt scientist.

But there was no denying she could throw one hell of a party. The room was filled to the nook with people in suits and dresses, a band was playing light jazz, and in the middle of it all, was Maggie.

Lillian had allowed her to wear something classy for the occasion, even if the pockets of her elegant jumpsuit were filled to the nook with various forms of poison, and she was hiding a 9mm pistol in her clutch.

Maggie looked around the room, trying to spot her first target. She'd memorized the file Lillian had given her, the other names were still a mystery. The blonde had ordered Maggie to only take one target at a time, with one other instruction.

" _The DEO is not invited. Anybody who shows up needs to be taken care of. That's an order._ "

Maggie hoped that her warning had been enough for Alex and her teams to back off.

Her hair was loosely draped over her face. Both trying to look seductive, and covering up the bruises on the side of her face. They hadn't aimed directly for her face, but she was pretty sure her left eye had taken a hit, as she felt it throb painfully.

Finally, she spotted her target on the stairs to the atrium they were in, talking to a few people Maggie only recognized from political campaigns. She made her way over to the trio.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt." She smiled warmheartedly. "You're Celeste Walker, right? The senator?"

The fifties-something dark-haired woman looked at her, and returned a polite smile. "Yes, I am."

Maggie faked wide eyes. "I'm a really big fan of your campaign, madam. I just wanted to… uh… _ask_ you about the recent developments in the alien legislature."

"Are you a journalist?" Celeste eyed her cautiously, as her two previous conversation partners excused themselves. Maggie laughed, and shook her head. "NCPD. Alien task force."

"Oh, my…" Celeste raised an eyebrow. "Seems you and I have a lot in common, then. We both care for the wellbeing of aliens."

Maggie suppressed the sarcastic retort ready on her lips, and settled on a nod, casually tucking her hand into her pocket. "Could I get you a drink?"

"Oh, there's no need, I've seen the waiters make their rounds. Won't be long until somebody comes back with a full glass. So, tell me…?"

"Maggie. Sawyer." Maggie shook the woman's hand. The woman winced at Maggie's firm shake, and Maggie recoiled. "I'm sorry… Too hard?" She chuckled nervously. "I work out a lot, sometimes I don't know my strength."

Celeste laughed, and shook her head. "No worries."

"Well, I'd love to exchange opinions on aliens, madam senator. But, of course, we're at a party. It would be rude to stand here discussing when you could obviously be mingling and networking with people more important than me."

"I wouldn't be against a healthy conversation with one of National City's finest, though." Celeste smiled, reaching into her purse and taking out a card. "Here. Call me tomorrow, maybe we can schedule something over lunch."

Maggie gratefully accepted the card with a polite smile. "Thank you. Enjoy your evening, madam senator."

"And yours, miss Sawyer."

Maggie turned around, and walked back down the stairs, as she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. A blocked number.

_Good. Room left of the atrium. Underneath the desk._

She checked if anybody was watching her, as she disappeared into the adjacent room.

As soon as she was alone, she breathed a sigh of relief. Celeste Walker hadn't noticed anything.

She took the business card and ripped it until it was too small to read, and threw it in a nearby trashcan.

 _Six down, six to go_.

She fished the next file from under the desk, and opened it, reading through the notes quickly. A lawyer who defended aliens, and had apparently tried to sabotage a few CADMUS cases. An alien himself, not killable with the neurotoxin Maggie had been using.

She cursed under her breath as she checked her pockets. The rest of her arsenal was in her car, she needed to go back and switch.

She quickly memorized the rest of the file. Father of two, came to Earth as a refugee trying to fit in, standard alien story.

She crouched to tape the file back to her desk, but before she could she felt a hand covering her mouth and pulling her back from behind. She resisted immediately, throwing her elbow back and smirking at the grunt of her attacker. She turned around to throw more punches, but froze when she saw who her attacker was.

"Alex, what the hell are you doing here?!" She hissed at the sight of her girlfriend, arms raised and nursing her cheek from the impact of Maggie's arm.

The agent looked up with a scoff. "Trying to save you, obviously."

"I don't need _saving_ , I need you to stay away, I thought I made that pretty clear." Maggie watched Alex move past her and reach underneath the desk to pull out the file again. "Who's your target?"

"Alien lawyer." Maggie grunted. "Danvers, I'm serious."

"Yeah, so am I." Alex shot back, closing the file when she was satisfied, and looking at her, her jaw clenching at the sight of the bruises on Maggie's face. "Did Lillian do that?"

"That doesn't matter. Alex, if she sees you here with me, you're dead, don't you get that?!"

"I do. Which is why I came alone, with no strike team, nothing to expose you. But I'm going to help you."

"This is not a two-head job, you need to back off and let me do this." Maggie shoved past Alex angrily, but froze when Alex grabbed her arm to pull her back.

"I'm _not_ losing you again."

Maggie frowned at the confession, looking Alex in the eyes as the agent continued. "I'm so scared, Maggie. For you, for Kara… For _us_ and what this is going to mean. But we agreed that as long as the two of us were together, and kept believing in each other, we'd be fine. Do you remember that?!"

Maggie remembered the conversation all too well, and the words hit home, but no emotional pleas and sobs could change the fact that Lillian needed the hit on the lawyer in ten minutes, and she was wasting time.

"Just, don't. Okay?" Maggie shook her head. "I have to go."

"No, wait!" Alex yelled after her as Maggie headed towards the door. Maggie spun around looking exasperated. "Alex, shut _up_. I'm done."

Alex swallowed thickly at the implication of those words, but followed Maggie out of the room nonetheless. If Maggie wanted distance, she'd give her just that. But she wasn't going to stand by and watch her get disposed of as soon as those names were struck through.

No, Alex Danvers came prepared. With the only weapon she had that could save her.

She grabbed a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter, and took a small sip as she looked around the room.

"My, my, my. Agent Danvers."

Alex spun around at the sound of her name, and her eyes widened as she saw who the voice belonged to.

"Maxwell Lord." She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice, but he did pick up on it judging by the size of his smirk. "Shocked to see me?"

"Just… Surprised." Alex frowned. "Where have you been?"

"Oh, everywhere." He smiled invitingly. "Working on some new projects, but I settled back into National City about a week ago."

"Welcome back." Alex was stunned. Maxwell put a casual hand into his ridiculously expensive suit pocket and eyed her. "So, Supergirl still saving the city here?"

"She is." Alex nodded, a small smirk appearing at the thought of her sister. "Though crime rates are much lower without you trying to nuke the city every other week."

"Point taken." He laughed, but the smile lingered on his face for too long. Alex started to suspect his agenda, and her suspicions were confirmed when he stepped closer. "Well, I'd love to have dinner with you, Alex. To get reacquainted. Tell each other about our lives."

"Max, I-…" Alex got distracted by the sight of Maggie walking behind Maxwell's left ear. She followed her trajectory, seeing her walk up to the lawyer from the file, and introducing herself.

She tried not to stare, but it was hard not to be entranced by the way her girlfriend was working the man. The subtle flirting, the hand touches.

Her thoughts were snapped back when she saw Max waving a hand in front of her face. She cleared her throat awkwardly, looking away from Maggie's mission. "Sorry. Dinner, right."

"Would you do me the honor?" Max smiled.

Alex sighed. "Max, I really don't think that's a good idea. A lot has changed since you went away."

She tried to focus on his response, but found herself pulled to Maggie once again, as the detective now walked away from the lawyer, leaving him staring at her back and ass with a flirty look on his face. A twinge of jealousy spread through her, but she knew that the feeling was completely irrational.

That made seven.

"… The feeling that you're not really listening to me."

Alex's eyes snapped back to the man in front of her. "God, I'm… I'm so rude. I'm sorry, Max. You know what? Fine. Dinner sounds lovely."

"Great. Tomorrow at seven?"

"Sure." Alex nodded, smiling at him politely. "Now, excuse me. I have something I need to take care of."

"Oh, official DEO business at a Luthor soirée? That sounds exciting." Maxwell's eyes lit up. Alex scoffed. "Yeah, wouldn't you like to know."

"Just keep me hanging on, agent Danvers." Maxwell winked, before walking off while sipping his glass of champagne. _Jesus_.

The encounter with Max had thrown Alex off her focus completely. And now she'd lost track of Maggie too.

The comm device in her ear beeped, and she reached for it, activating it subtly.

"Kara?"

" _Alex, is everything okay?"_

"Yeah, where are you?"

" _I'm with Lena, we're somewhere near the stairs. I haven't seen Maggie."_

Alex looked around, until she spotted her, in her civilian clothes. "I see you. I'm to your right, near the entrance."

She saw Kara looking around, until Lena pointed in Alex's direction, and the agent replied. "She still has five names to go, so she'll be on the move soon enough."

" _How do you want us to play it?!"_

"Lay low for now. Have you seen Lillian anywhere?"

" _I'm not sure she's here, Alex. Nobody has seen her yet."_

"Damn… Okay, we need Lillian, the plan won't work if we don't have her."

Alex watched Lena say something to Kara that she couldn't understand, before Kara sighed. " _Alex, Lena says that her mother has an office on the top floor of the building. Maybe the controls are in there?"_

"She's probably planning something…" Alex grunted.

" _I'll go up, try to see if she's there. If she's alone, I can totally overpower her."_

Alex saw Lena's lips move again, and she could read the phrase easily. _I'm coming with you._

Kara protested, but eventually gave in, and looked at Alex again. "We'll take care of it. You focus on Maggie. I'll keep you updated."

Alex nodded, and tapped her comms off again. "Come on, Mags… Where are you…"

Another sip of her champagne as she glanced around the room looking for a sign of her. But the murmurs of the crowd were silenced by the lights in the atrium dimming down, leaving only one single spotlight at the top of the stairs.

A big round of applause came when a figure stepped into the light, and towards the microphone planted there, connected to the speakers all around the room. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for attending this lovely event on such short notice."

Alex clenched her hands into fists. Tonight was the night that woman's voice would be silenced forever. No more smirking, no more sneering. No more hurting either of her girls.

Tonight was the night Alex put a bullet through her head.

Lillian Luthor.


	14. Chapter 14

Maggie slowly pulled herself out from underneath the body of the large man she was currently trapped under, and turned his face towards her. When she saw his eyes, large and bulgy, she knew he was dead.

That made ten.

Even back when it was the four of them as Phoenixes, she hadn't killed that many people in one night. But she couldn't focus on that guilt now. She had to keep moving. There were only two remaining. Two standing in the way of her and a direct confrontation with Lillian.

She hadn't seen Alex anywhere since their argument, so she hoped that she'd at least taken her advice. Now that Lillian was in the atrium, mingling after her grand entrance, Maggie knew that she had a direct eye on every move she made.

Her phone buzzed for the fifth time that evening.

_Upstairs. Top floor, penthouse office._

Maggie frowned, as it didn't specify a hiding spot for the file. But she figured it would sort itself out, so she headed towards the elevators away from the atrium, and got inside, riding it all the way up.

Back in the atrium, Lillian was talking to a few acquaintances when she spotted a certain figure in the crowd. She excused herself from the conversation quickly, as she took a few steps into their direction, before stopping with a smile.

The brunette agent hadn't noticed her staring. That meant that her little Phoenix had all the time in the world.

 _Exactly as planned_.

* * *

Maggie stepped out of the elevator, drawing her gun. Something felt off about Lillian sending her all the way up when the previous files had all been in the general vicinity of the party.

She heard muffled voices coming from a door at the end of the hallway, and she slowly shuffled towards them, her back never leaving the wall.

When she was close enough, she could hear the conversation the voices were having.

"… _could be anywhere. I don't even know where to look."_

" _She probably has it on her, Kara. She's downstairs."_

Kara…?

Maggie turned the corner and ran into the room, her gun raised. The two women in front of her looked up at the noise, and Kara jumped sideways to shield Lena immediately.

"Kara? Lena? What…" Maggie frowned, lowering her gun. "What are you two doing here?!"

"We're…" Kara shook her head, interrupting herself. "Why are _you_ here?"

"None of your business." Maggie shot back. Lena sighed at the exchange, and looked at the detective. "Maggie, we're trying to find a way to deactivate the implant. She has a control somewhere, but we can't find it."

"You three are _idiots_." Maggie grunted. "If you'd just stayed out of it…"

"I agree."

Maggie's head shot up, and she spun around at the sound behind her. Lillian was standing in the doorway, in the elegant suit she'd been wearing downstairs. "Nice of you two to join us tonight. Though, miss Danvers, I don't remember sending you an invitation."

"Good thing I could bring a +1, then." Lena spat back at her mother. Lillian's smile didn't falter. "I know what you're thinking. You're trying to find a way to deactivate her. The off switch to the chip I installed in her."

Neither of the two women responded, but everybody in the room knew Lillian was right. And the woman seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. "Too bad you'll never find it. Because at the end of the day, she'll always come back to me. And the phoenix will rise from the ashes as it has before."

" _God_ , I'm so tired of those stupid analogies." Lena grunted. Kara opened her mouth to protest against her girlfriend's ridiculous rebellion, but as Maggie stepped back, she realized that Lena was trying to distract Lillian. To prevent her from doing anything to Maggie.

"Oh, Lena, my dear. You were always the smart one." Lillian turned to Maggie. "Your final two names, Maggie."

Maggie frowned, expecting Lillian to elaborate. But when the woman stayed silent after it, she turned around. Until she realized what Lillian meant.

Lena and Kara.

_Eleven and twelve._

"No." Maggie shook her head and stepped back, reaching into her pocket. She locked eyes with Kara one more time before making a desperate last attempt, grabbing a poison syringe from her pocket and running over to Lillian.

When the blonde raised two fingers to her forehead, Maggie froze, slowly lowering the syringe.

Lillian smiled. "That's it, my phoenix. Come back to me."

Maggie dropped the syringe from her hand, but stayed frozen. Kara and Lena watched the exchange with wide eyes.

"Now…" Lillian looked at her, her hand still touching her forehead. "Your targets. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor. Dispose of them. Now."

Maggie turned around to face Kara and Lena, and the blonde superhero's stomach dropped when she saw the same vacant look in her eyes that she'd seen at the CADMUS facility.

Kara used her super speed to fly past Maggie, knocking her over in the process, and shove Lillian away. The woman's fingertips disconnected from her forehead, and Kara looked around, but Maggie was on the ground stumbling to get up, and she couldn't tell if it had worked or not.

"Kara!" She heard Lena yell behind her. Clearly, Lena had seen the look in Maggie's eyes, and it didn't seem good.

Kara turned to Lillian. "How?!"

The woman laughed, and pushed Kara away with a force Kara hadn't seen humanly possible. "You really think I wouldn't have some more tricks up my sleeve, Kara Danvers? You're never going to be able to stop it."

She shoved Lillian back into the wall, using her freeze-breath to freeze her in place, before she turned around and ran towards Lena, tackling Maggie to the ground.

"Supergirl…" Maggie grunted with a smirk. "Good thing I brought candy."

Kara frowned at the statement, before Maggie pulled kryptonite rocks out of her pocket and threw them towards her. The blonde shrieked and jumped away from the burning pain.

Lena crawled over towards her girlfriend, and Maggie got up again. "How simple."

She reached into her purse to grab her gun, and raised it. "Who goes first?"

Kara closed her eyes and tried to think. Something, _anything_ that could help them. Save them.

Her prayers were answered in the form of Maggie's body crumpling forward onto her knees, and toppling to the ground, unconscious.

Revealing a panting Alex Danvers behind her, holding a heavy looking silver tray in one hand, and her gun in the other.

" _Alex_ …" Kara sighed in relief, as Lena moved forward to throw the kryptonite as far away from them as possible.

The agent looked around, seeing Lillian looking bored, frozen to the ground up to her waist. She dropped the tray and stalked towards the woman, grabbing her by the suit and shoving her back, pointing the gun at her throat. "I'm going to give you five seconds to talk. And if nothing comes out that I like, I'm going to enjoy killing you slowly and painfully."

"As opposed to… What?" Lillian shot back. "Ten bullets into my skull?"

"At least." Alex hissed threateningly. "It's not a threat, Luthor. It's a fucking promise. Now, how do we deactivate the implant?!"

Lillian laughed. "Well, surely you realize that I'm never going to tell you a thing, agent Danvers. And since I'm the only person that knows about project Phoenix, I don't think you'll get very far without my help."

Alex knew that she was right. But there _had_ to be another way. She turned around, to see Maggie lying on the ground, unmoving. Kara was standing upright, her hand linked with Lena's, who looked as scared as Alex felt.

Their eyes met for a brief second, yet that was all Alex needed to realize that Lillian had once again outsmarted them.

"Checkmate, agent Danvers. I always win." Lillian smiled proudly. "Now, you can kill me. But that'll mean breaking the connection with Maggie immediately, and effectively _killing her_. Your choice."

"You're the host." Lena said, behind her. For a second, Alex wondered whatever the hell the party downstairs had to do with anything.

Until she got it.

Lena took another step into her mother's direction. "You're the host, the hive that the bees return to. Your implants, your _phoenixes_."

Lillian raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. "I think we've already established that-…"

Lena interrupted her mother, turning to Alex. "The implants. They're not chips, they're nanobots. That's why they're called phoenixes, the nanobots can come out of the body at will to move on to another, and start over again."

Alex's head was spinning, as she was thinking about how it all fit together, and why that actually _meant_ something significant.

"Like I said." Lillian smiled. "The smart one. But it won't help you. Isn't that right?"

Alex turned around, but before she could react she felt herself getting body-checked onto the ground. She grunted in pain, as she realized that it was Maggie, conscious again, and looking absolutely pissed.

Kara raced forward to help her, but due to the still near kryptonite, she was weakened, and it was hard to overpower Maggie's rage, even with the two skilled fighters. The detective was throwing punches and kicks all around, and both sisters took hits. Alex wasn't holding back anymore. She knew that her girlfriend was still in there, but she couldn't reach her. She'd tried before, and that had resulted in Kara almost getting killed.

Lena scrambled to reach her mother, and looked her in the eyes. "Where are the other three nanobots?!"

"Two of them were destroyed through the poison Hunter and Dylan took. It's a shame. Such expensive projects wasted on two low-life idiots."

"What about the third?!"

Lillian laughed as she watched Alex and Kara fight a losing battle against Maggie. _Her_ Maggie. "She was malfunctioning. Taylor's wasn't. I needed to switch them so that detective Sawyer wouldn't resist my commands again."

Kara heard what Lillian said, and froze momentarily, remembering what Maggie had told her.

" _Something happened out in the field when I was supposed to bring an alien in for experiments, and all of a sudden I didn't want to do it anymore."_

Her nanobot had been malfunctioning, so that she no longer was under CADMUS control.

And that's when Kara remembered _everything_.

Suddenly, she knew how to solve the problem.

So with one last glance at Alex, she turned to Maggie. Grabbing her by the arms, looking her in the eyes.

And blasting her heat vision into Maggie's head, until the detective fell backwards.

" _NO_! _MAGGIE_!" Alex screamed at the sight.

Lena's eyes widened, as she pulled Kara back, seeing Alex stumble closer to the scene, and dropping to her knees next to her girlfriend.

Maggie didn't move.


	15. Chapter 15

"What the _fuck_ did you do?!" Alex shouted at Kara, gently cradling Maggie's face in her hands. She saw an angry red burn on her forehead, blistered and red, and snapped her head up towards her sister.

"It's _me_ , Alex." Kara whispered, looking her in the eyes. "It was me all along."

"What… What are you talking about?"

Kara shuffled forward, kneeling next to Maggie beside Alex to inspect the burn. "I did it, a year ago."

"You _killed_ her…" She whispered, looking down at her girlfriend's unmoving body. The blonde shook her head. "She still has a heartbeat. Alex, listen… Do you remember the abduction attempt on that Thoron alien? It interrupted our sister night, we were watching Kitchen Nightmares?"

Alex was too wired to think. Yet she vaguely remembered what Kara was telling her, but it didn't matter, as Kara continued anyway. "It was near the landfill. I flew over there, and I saw the Thoron lying on his back. Somebody was standing over him, I attacked them, but they fought me off. I assumed they were alien, they were putting up a fight." Kara looked down as the tears started sliding down her cheeks. "Alex, it was her. It was Maggie, I remember it now."

"You damaged her nanobot." Lena's impressed voice came from behind them, both sisters momentarily forgetting that mother and daughter were also in the room. Kara swallowed thickly. "I… Blasted her with my heat vision and she went down, I grabbed the alien and put him in DEO custody, and I didn't look back. She… Must have woken up scared and confused, and… Alex, maybe I destroyed the nanobot now! Maybe it's over!"

"I'm afraid not."

Lillian.

Kara turned around to face the woman. "How do _you_ know?!"

"Because I'm the one that created her, Supergirl." Lillian smirked, still not out of tricks apparently. "And your little show was very dramatic, but it only made her angry. And believe me, I like her most when she's angry."

Behind her, Kara could hear a sharp intake of breath. It was Maggie coming to, and propping herself up on her elbows. Kara braced herself for round two of her fight with the detective, as her eyes scanned the room and finally landed on her. "You…"

Alex kept a grip on Maggie's arm. "Maggie, don't move… Please…"

She ignored her completely as she scrambled to her feet, clutching her head. Alex leaned forward, wrapping her arm around her girlfriend's waist, her eyes brimming with concern. "Maggie, are you okay?"

For a second, Maggie leaned into her touch, and Alex hoped that Kara's bout of inspiration had worked. But then she snapped loose, stumbling around the room to pick up her gun and walking up to Lillian, who smiled at her. "My little Phoenix."

Maggie looked at her. "What are my orders?"

Alex's stomach dropped. _She'd lost her now. Forever._

Maggie was about to put a bullet through her head and not think twice about it.

She'd lost her to CADMUS. Lillian had won.

"Destroy them. All of them."

Maggie nodded, and turned around to face Kara, who was standing protectively in front of Lena again. She raised the gun with a smirk. The blonde nodded weakly. "I don't blame you, Maggie. Just do it."

She braced for impact, as she knew that Maggie's smirk would be the last thing she'd ever see.

She didn't expect Maggie to wink at her.

As the detective turned around, launching the butt of the gun full-speed into Lillian's still smirking face. The blonde woman recoiled instantly, a huge gash on her cheek now oozing blood.

For once, the woman wasn't all smirk and suave. She turned back to Maggie with wide eyes that showed nothing but fear. "Maggie…"

"Don't you say my name like you love me." Another strike with the gun barrel.

Alex was frozen, watching her take on Lillian Luthor, but she noticed the blonde reaching for something in the pocket of her jacket. She stepped forward, but before she could reach the pair, Lillian's smirk – albeit dimmed down by the pain – was back, as she watched Maggie fall to the ground, clutching her head and screaming in pain.

Alex reacted on instinct, shoving Maggie away from Lillian as fast as possible, and channeling all the anger that woman had made her feel into reaching for her arm and yanking it back.

Lillian wasn't going down without a fight, but a few well-timed satisfactory punches in her face were enough to make her loosen her grip on the device in her hand. Alex pulled it away from her grasp, and Maggie's screaming stopped.

That remote had to be Lillian's failsafe. So the nanobot was at least still _slightly_ active.

She threw the remote towards Kara, who caught it expertly, and turned back to Lillian, unleashing the full fury of Alex Danvers onto the woman's frame.

_She lost control again._

But this time, she liked it. She _needed_ it.

Because Maggie would only be okay once that woman's heart stopped beating.

Punch after punch, kick after kick. Every hit weakened her, but she wasn't planning on stopping any time soon. She saw red.

After what seemed like an eternity, she felt two arms yank her back forcefully, with a power she knew only her sister possessed. "Alex, stop… Calm down."

"Don't tell me to _calm down_!" Alex yelled back at her sister in surprise. "How can you do this?! It's _her_! She needs… She needs to be punished for what she did to us!"

"She will be. Believe me, Alex, I wouldn't want anything else but for her to be killed. But that's not how we're going to let this end. This isn't how we work."

"It's how _I_ work!" Alex shook her head, trying to get away from Kara's grip, but the superhero was too strong.

Until she heard a small voice from the other side of the room.

" _Danvers_ …"

Alex looked up to see Maggie looking at her weakly, her eyes still reflecting all the pain inside of them. " _Please_ …"

Truth be told, in that moment she honestly didn't know whether Maggie was asking her to stop or to continue. But the look on Maggie's face told her that her girlfriend needed _Alex_ now. Not _Agent Danvers_.

"I'm calling backup." Lena said, stepping outside and trying not to look at her beaten and bloodied mother.

Alex raced to Maggie's side, falling on her knees and clutching the detective's hand in hers. "I'm here, Mags."

"Get… Get it out of me." Maggie whispered. And Alex couldn't do anything but nod. "I will. I promise."

Kara stared at the remote in her hands. "One of these buttons should eject the nanobot. But I don't want to risk doing something wrong."

"We'll have to find the plans for it… Can you fly to the CADMUS facility you were held in and go look for them?"

Kara nodded, and left the room after throwing one last glare at Lillian's unconscious body.

Leaving Alex and Maggie alone.

" _Alex_ …" Maggie whispered weakly. Alex laughed, and kissed her knuckles. "It's okay, Mags. You're going to be fine. We won. Thanks to you."

" _G-good_ …" Maggie smiled, before it turned to a grimace. "It's moving… I feel it _move_ inside of my head."

"The nanobot?" Alex's stomach dropped. That wasn't a good sign. She needed to track this bot now, before it did damage. She had to get Maggie back to the DEO med lab, and fast.

The glass behind her shattered, as the Martian Manhunter appeared, bursting through the window. Lena must have called him.

He gazed around the room calmly, his eyes settling on Lillian's figure, before Alex drew his attention.

"J'onn, help me. We need to get her to the DEO, we need to get the nanobot out of her."

J'onn nodded, and picked Maggie up in his arms, exchanging one last look with Alex that said everything.

_I'm sorry I doubted you. You were right. You got her back._

After that, he jumped out of the broken window to rush Maggie into the DEO.

Leaving Alex alone with a weakly moaning Lillian, who was apparently coming to.

The agent turned around with a smirk, picking up her gun from the ground, and moving towards the woman.

"It's just you and me now, Lillian... I'm going to enjoy this. _A lot_."


	16. Chapter 16

"You won't do it. You and I both know it."

"What makes you think I won't?"

"You may be a soldier, agent Danvers. But you're no murderer. That's where you and your girlfriend differ vastly."

God, even in the face of death that women couldn't help but push Alex's buttons.

"Maggie isn't a murderer. She's a brainwashed, innocent person that you _corrupted_."

"I have not brainwashed her at any point during this evening, when she killed five dangerous people. Maggie Sawyer is a hero, for a cause that requires heroes to step up and do their jobs. To make a sacrifice for the greater good."

"No, Lillian. See, this isn't how it works anymore." Alex grabbed a chair and sat down in front of the woman, taking her time. "This isn't how this ends. You talking, thinking somehow that you're still in control. No, this is over for you. For CADMUS."

"Are you under the impression that CADMUS will cease to exist without me?" Lillian tilted her head. But it was Alex's turn to smirk.

"No, they'll come back. They'll try and stop my sister and countless others from being who they are. But as long as _you_ cease to exist, I'll be fine with it."

"Maybe I won't be the one to change the world, but others will."

"Well, I won't hold my breath." Alex moved forward, raising her gun to Lillian's forehead. "But I suggest _you_ do. It'll make it hurt less."

"You can kill me, _Alex_." The way her name came out of the woman's mouth gave her goosebumps. "But you will not kill my cause. And we'll always keep calling our Phoenix home."

"I'll go to the end of the _fucking_ world to keep Maggie safe, Luthor. But once again - I'm _calling your bluff_."

She clicked the safety off, and felt her fingers clutching the gun's grip. Nearing the trigger. Ready to strike.

Then, she hesitated.

 _If_ she killed Lillian, she'd finally be the murderer she didn't want to be. She'd have the woman's blood on her hands. And she was pretty sure none of her friends and family would actually _blame_ her for it, but that didn't mean it was the right thing to do.

"I'll go down for my cause." Lillian said, apparently seeing the torment on Alex's face, and deciding to change tactics. The tension was tangible all around the pair, as Alex leaned forward involuntarily. "…But it won't mean others will not avenge me. So make your decision, agent Danvers. Kill me now and face the consequences, or save yourself and your family."

The final threat.

_The final call._

And finally, Alex realized that she'd unconsciously made her decision a long time ago.

So with a deep sigh, she looked the woman into her eyes.

"Lillian Luthor, you are under arrest."

* * *

"Alex?"

She heard a weak voice coming from inside as she shut the door to her apartment behind her. She threw her keys down onto the table and walked inside, to see Maggie sitting upright in her bed.

"Hey… What are you doing up? You need to rest." Alex took a seat on the side of the bed, reaching forward to capture Maggie's lips with her own. Maggie kissed her back slowly, and then pulled back with a sigh. "I can't sleep anymore."

"Babe, you had _brain surgery_ a few days ago."

"It wasn't… that dramatic." Maggie hesitated, defending herself weakly. But Alex just scoffed. "I was the one that performed it, I know when I'm being dramatic and when I'm telling the truth."

Okay, so the surgery didn't exactly involve drilling into Maggie's skull or draining blood from her brain. If anything, it involved more scanning, x-rays, needles and extremely detailed measuring and aiming. But they'd only gotten the nanobot out after hours of precision work, and it had been absolutely terrifying for Alex herself.

"I'm sorry." She heard Maggie mutter, looking down. So she shook her head quickly. "No, Mags. _I'm_ sorry. I…" She sighed. They hadn't fully talked since the events at the party, since Maggie had been out for most of the days on heavy pain medication, and when conscious was more incoherent than anything.

Earlier that day when Alex popped into work quickly to check if everything was okay, was the first time she'd let Maggie out of her sight since the surgery. She'd been unsure as to whether her girlfriend was ready to be left alone, though she knew that her days involved mostly sleeping, so she should be fine by herself for one hour. But Maggie had been on her mind every _moment_ she was away from her.

"It's fine." Was Maggie's reply to her stumble of words.

"No, it's not." Alex shook her head. "I'm… I'm just so _scared_ , Maggie. I know that… That was everything. At least, I hope it was?" She didn't mean for the last part to be a question, but she couldn't stop it.

Maggie swallowed thickly, and propped herself up a little higher, wincing at the pounding in her head. "It was. There's no more secrets. Well, maybe… That I secretly really like musicals?"

Alex raised her eyebrows. "Y-you do?"

"Yeah…" Maggie scrunched her nose. "A-at least I _think_ I do…It's all a bit fuzzy."

Alex laughed, leaning forward and joining her girlfriend on the bed, wrapping her arms around her. It stayed silent for a moment as both women reveled in the fact that they were both there. _Together_. Alright.

With only one question still burning on Alex's mind.

"How did you get one of my crystals to rescue Kara? I keep those at the DEO."

"It was one of your projects I couldn't know about." Maggie smiled weakly, leaning into Alex and, for the first time in a long time, actually feeling safe. Alex didn't reply, waiting for her to elaborate.

Maggie knew that the time was right. That right now was better than anything she could have ever planned or hoped for.

So she pulled away from Alex's grasp to try and ease herself off the bed, though she found herself dizzy and unstable soon enough. Alex gasped as she scrambled to help her. "Maggie, _calm down!_ Don't get up!"

"Shut up." Maggie replied playfully, walking over to her windbreaker draped loosely over a chair in the corner, and reaching into the pocket.

"What are you doing?!" Alex looked beyond confused as to why Maggie would exert herself like that just to get something from her pocket. "I could have gotten that for y-…"

"Okay, really, stop talking." Maggie smiled, before sinking to the ground next to Alex. For a second, Alex feared that she was actually collapsing, and she already moved forward to help her up, but then her eyes widened when she saw what Maggie was doing.

Getting on one knee, and holding up a small square box.

Where Alex clearly recognized her own crystal worked into the ring.

"M- _Mags_ …"

"Alexandra Danvers, you're the light of my life. You are _my_ sun. The thing my world turns around. So I told Kara that, after the whole thing last week. And she told me what you'd been working on." Maggie felt her eyes fill with tears, but she swallowed them to continue. "I lied to you. I hurt you, and I never deserved the trust and faith you put in me after that. But you did, and you saved me. Like you've done so many times now."

Alex was full-on crying now, and Maggie couldn't help but follow. "I-I _love_ you, Alex. I never want to lose you again. I want us to be together forever. I want to hold you and never let you go. I want to wake up with you every morning and work with you and I _don't_ want to live without you. Never."

She took a deep breath. "So, Alex… _Baby_ … Will you marry me?"

Alex cupped Maggie's cheeks in both her hands, and nodded slowly, before connecting their lips together in the most passionate kiss they'd ever shared. One that said everything.

_I forgive you. It's okay. I love you. You won't lose me. You'll always have me._

And when they pulled back, Alex saw the adoration and love in Maggie's eyes. "Yes. Yes, yes. I want to be your wife, and I want you to be mine."

Maggie laughed, tears slipping down her cheeks. "Thanks."

Alex smiled at the response. "You dork."

"I'm going to need help getting up, though."

Alex wrapped her arms around Maggie and helped her stand, before enveloping her in a hug. When they pulled back, Maggie looked her in the eyes with a serious frown.

"You're… You're sure though, right? I mean… You know the things I did..."

"You're better now." Alex smiled, tucking a strand of Maggie's hair behind her ear. "I guess Lillian was right about one thing. You really are like a Phoenix. Because you came back to me again."

And with that dimpled smirk, Maggie looked her in the eyes.

"Always, Alex."

* * *

 

**The End.**


End file.
